Others were concerned about where the sound came from, particularly because of their proximity to the nation's capital. Was it the Navy? Or was it a sonic boom? Or was it an earthquake?" Sandy Abuarja, who lives in Gambrills, Maryland, told CNN affiliate WBAL. "Our Ring notifications were going crazy with so many different options. Residents in Maryland also reported hearing the boom. When I finally got through, they said, 'Oh, this DOD aircraft went supersonic, which sounded a little bit strange.'" Their nonemergency line was busy forever. We were obviously freaked out a little bit," Chuck Martin, who felt the boom in Fairfax County, Virginia, told CNN affiliate WJLA. "The house rocked, the windows rattled, and it was done, like that. That means the jets were traveling faster than the speed of sound, creating shock waves that caused a sudden and resounding boom, startling some residents on the ground. The jets' extraordinary speed caused a sonic boom across the Washington, DC, area, officials said. The F-16s did not shoot down the aircraft, a US official told CNN, noting it is typical for the FAA to call in jets if someone is flying unsafely. The flight was cruising from East Tennessee to Long Island, New York, at 34,000 feet, an altitude where pilots have 30 to 60 seconds to don oxygen masks when pressure drops or risk falling unconscious.į-16 jets were "authorized to travel at supersonic speeds" as they raced to make contact with the aircraft, a Cessna 560 Citation V, according to the Continental US North American Aerospace Defense Command Region news release. Hypoxia is an insidious risk of flying at high altitude and could have been brought on by a decompression of the Cessna Citation jet's pressurized cabin, aviation experts say. The lone pilot and three passengers were aboard the Cessna Citation that crashed in a heavily wooded area near Waynesboro, Virginia, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday.Īnother source told CNN that crash investigators are most interested in hypoxia - a shortage of oxygen in the blood - as a reason why the pilot and passengers didn't respond to attempts by air traffic controllers and even other civilian aircraft to contact the ill-fated plane. WASHINGTON - The pilot of the unresponsive private jet that triggered an interception by supersonic military fighter jets protecting Washington, DC, was observed slumped over in his seat, a source familiar with the response told CNN. F-16 fighter jets caused a sonic boom while investigating the unresponsive plane over DC. They also weren’t able to say why the two pilots weren’t able to use the emergency oxygen system, which should have given them time to address the issue and descend to safer altitudes.No survivors have been found from a Virginia plane crash. After taking off from Orlando on a flight to Dallas, the pilots lost consciousness, and the plane flew more than 1,000 miles to Aberdeen, S.D., before running out of fuel. In the 1999 crash that killed golfer Payne Stewart, three other passengers and two pilots, NTSB concluded theLearjet 35 lost pressure as it climbed, a similar scenario to Sunday’s crash. But there’s no way to test bodies for a lack of oxygen, or hypoxia, after an accident. “When you have a high-energy impact, there’s so little evidence remaining that you usually can’t find anything useful in the wreckage to help explain the accident.”Ī health emergency seems less likely because there is no evidence the passengers tried to intervene, Cox said. “It’s very difficult,” said Roger Cox, a former NTSB investigator who was an airline pilot. owns the plane, had adopted Azarian, he told the Post. John Rumpel, whose Florida-based Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc. The plane was carrying Adina Azarian, who sold real estate in New York and Long Island, and her 2-year-old daughter, Aria, according to a statement from Keller Williams NYC, a franchise of Keller Williams Realty Inc. When a pilot is unresponsive, a plane continues to fly on autopilot along the planned route until it runs out of fuel. Military pilots said they saw Hefner slumped over in the cockpit, and experts speculate that the plane lost air pressure, leaving Hefner and three others on the plane unconscious. The jet then headed for the highly-sensitive airspace about 34,000 feet over key federal government sites. The plane Hefner was piloting departed eastern Tennessee Sunday afternoon but quickly lost contact with air traffic controllers before turning around just before its stated destination on Long Island. A fighter jet from Joint Base Andrews was scrambled Sunday to intercept an unresponsive business jet that flew over the nation's capital.
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