Maryland residents still rattled by sonic boom caused when military jets intercepted plane: 'whole ground shook'
BALTIMORE - Investigators are investigating the wreckage of a small plane in a remote Virginia forest.
The crash, which happened after the military scrambled fighter jets to intercept the plane once it entered restricted airspace around the nation's capitol, left behind "highly fragmented" wreckage in a mountainous area that will take days to gather and sort, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA said in a brief update that the pilot and three passengers were killed and that the plane was "destroyed" in the crash. Their identities weren't immediately released.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island's MacArthur Airport. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York's Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed around 3:30 p.m.
The plane flew directly over the nation's capital, though it was technically flying above some of the most heavily restricted airspace in the nation.
According to the Pentagon, six F-16 fighter jets were immediately deployed to intercept the plane. Two aircraft from the 113th Fighter Wing, out of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, were the first to reach the Cessna to begin attempts to contact the pilot. Two F-16 aircraft out of New Jersey and two from South Carolina also responded to the incident.
Flight tracking sites showed the plane suffered a rapid spiraling descent, dropping at one point at a rate of more than 30,000 feet per minute before crashing in the St. Mary's Wilderness.
A sonic boom was felt Sunday afternoon in parts of Maryland and into Washington D.C. and Virginia.
Anne Arundel County's Office of Emergency Management told WJZ they got inundated with calls after the boom.
The sound came from F-16s scrambling to intercept a plane that flew into restricted airspace.
"That jet was moving," said Elsie Watts, an Arnold resident.
At Annapolis City Dock on Monday, the loud boom was all Watts talked about.
"I said, 'Oh my Jesus, we're getting ready to go to war,'" Watts said.
Security cameras captured the moment.
"The video does not do it justice," said Torrey Leonard, from Annapolis.
"I go outside and I look around and all of my neighbors are all standing outside looking up in the sky trying to figure out what's going on," added Mike from Annapolis.
The sonic boom was caused by fighter jets racing to intercept the Cessna Citation airplane.
The pilot was unresponsive, officials said.
The Cessna eventually crashed on its own in Western Virginia. All four people on the plane were killed, according to officials.
Officials said the flight was not shot down.
"If you think that was just one plane, can you imagine what two or three would have been?" Watts said. "People would have had heart attacks. I don't know. The whole ground shook."
The Air Force compares a sonic boom sound to thunder.
It's caused when an object travels faster than the speed of sound, which is about 750 mph at sea level.
Office of Emergency Management said there were no reports of property damage or power outages from the sonic boom.
The plane that crashed was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc, which is based in Florida. John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were aboard the plane. They were returning to their home in East Hampton, on Long Island, after visiting his house in North Carolina, he said.
NTSB investigator Adam Gerhardt told reporters it will take investigators a while to reach the remote crash scene about 2 to 3 miles north of Montebello in mountainous terrain. They expect to be on the scene at least three to four days.
Investigators will look at when the pilot become unresponsive and why aircraft flew the path that it did, he said. They will consider several factors that are routinely examined in such probes including the plane, its engines, weather conditions, pilot qualifications and maintenance records, he said.
CBS News contributed to this story
