Sonic boom in DC: Plane that crashed lost contact with air traffic control just after takeoff

Victims named as Adina Azarian, 49, her two-year-old daughter Aria, pilot Jeff Hefner, and nanny Evadnie Smith

NTSB investigating deadly Va. plane crash

The pilot of the private Cessna Citation jet that caused a panic in Washington DC on Sunday when it passed into restricted airspace before crashing into a heavily-wooded area in Virginia was seen “slumped” in the cockpit prior to the accident.

Four people were killed in the disaster, including the adopted daughter and grandaughter of Florida businessman John Rumpel, 75, who had already lost a daughter in a scuba diving accident almost 30 years earlier.

Mr Rumpel, owner of Encore Motors of Melbourne and known as a prominent donor to conservative political causes aligned with Donald Trump, was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that his “entire family” had been on the plane when it crashed.

When the doomed flight, en route from Tennessee to MacArthur Airport in Long Island, New York, entered DC airpsace, a loud sonic boom was heard across the capital as two F-16s were scrambled to intercept the plane as it passed by sensitive sites including the White House and US Capitol.

First responders at the crash site said it had left a “crater” in rural Virginia.

Outside aviation experts speculated the pilot likely lost consciousness from a lack of oxygen inside the jet when it climbed above 10,000 feet, the altitude that typically requires cabin pressurization.

Only minutes into the doomed journey, the pilot stopped responding to air traffic control instructions prompting the alert to military, security and law enforcement agencies.

Key Points

• Sonic boom ‘explosion’ shakes Washington, DC, as fighter jets react to unresponsive plane before crash
• Pilot of private jet was ‘unresponsive’ even as F-16s used ‘flares’ to draw attention
• Police say no survivors located at Shenandoah Valley crash site
• Businessman says ‘entire family’ was on doomed private jet
• What is a sonic boom?

[7 June 2023 10:00 · AP]

Soviet Union became first country in 1968 to fly supersonic passenger plane

The Soviet Union became the first country in 1968 to fly a supersonic passenger plane, the Tupolev TU-144. But a fatal crash at the 1973 Paris Air Show ended that ambition.

In 1963, the U.S. government announced a major program to develop a supersonic passenger aircraft. But serious problems soon surfaced, including massive development costs and doubts about financial viability. The program was terminated in 1971.

[7 June 2023 11:00 · AP]

1960s NASA experiments found sonic booms to be 'annoying,’ ‘irritating’ and ‘startling’

During the 1960s, NASA collected data on the effects of sonic booms on people who experienced them. Experiments showed that many described the booms as “annoying,” “irritating” and “startling,” NASA found.

In 1973, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited supersonic flights over land, “based on the expectation that such flights would cause a sonic boom to reach the ground,” the Congressional Research Service wrote.

[7 June 2023 12:00 · AP]

The Concorde

The Concorde, an Anglo-French supersonic jetliner, saw success for a number of years after making its first commercial flights in 1976. However, its ear-rattling sonic booms irritated people on the ground and led to restrictions on where the jet could fly.

In the U.S., the plane flew mainly to New York and Washington. With four jet engines and afterburners, the plane could fly at twice the speed of sound and cruised at close to 60,000 feet, far above other airliners. It promised to revolutionize long-distance travel by cutting flying time from the U.S. East Coast to Europe from eight hours to three and a half hours.

The Concorde never caught on widely. The plane’s economics were challenging, and its sonic booms led it to be banned on many overland routes. Only 20 were built; 14 of which were used for passenger service.

In 2003, British Airways and Air France both stopped Concorde service.

[7 June 2023 13:00 · AP]

2021 sonic boom caused concern about earthquake

Sonic booms are still heard in the U.S. from the nation’s military aircraft. In 2021, a sonic boom caused widespread concern that there was an earthquake on the Oregon coast.

Military officials with the 142nd Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard said a single-pilot F-15C and a two-person F-15D Eagle had inadvertently reached supersonic speeds as they flew over the Pacific Ocean.

[7 June 2023 14:00 · AP]

Plane that crashed in Virginia lost contact with air traffic controllers during ascent, feds say

Only minutes into a doomed journey that ended on a remote Virginia mountain, the pilot of a business jet was not responding to air traffic control instructions and the situation was soon reported to a network that includes military, security and law enforcement agencies, according to federal aviation officials.

Despite being out of contact on its ascent Sunday afternoon, the jet that had just taken off from a Tennessee airport continued toward its intended destination on Long Island, then turning to fly back to Virginia where it slammed into a mountain, killing the four people aboard.