US fighter jets chase small plane over Washington, D.C.

The Cessna, with an unresponsive pilot, later crashed in Virginia and authorities say no survivors were found.

The United States military has scrambled F-16 fighter jets in a supersonic pursuit of a wayward and unresponsive plane that flew over Washington, DC before crashing into the mountains of Virginia.

No survivors were found at the crash site Sunday, Virginia State Police said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, earlier in the day and was headed for Long Island in New York.

The plane inexplicably circled over Long Island and flew straight over the US capital before crashing in mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, at around 3:30 pm local time (19:30 GMT).

Four people were on board the Cessna, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency. A Cessna Citation can carry up to 12 passengers.

It was not immediately clear why the plane did not respond or why it crashed.

The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the Flight Aware flight tracking website.

John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, her 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were on board the plane. They were returning to his home in East Hampton, Long Island, after visiting his home in North Carolina, he said.

Rumpel, a pilot, told the newspaper he didn’t have much information from authorities but hoped his family wouldn’t suffer and suggested the plane may have lost pressurization.

“It was coming down at 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) per minute, and no one could survive a crash at that speed,” he said.

The US military scrambled the F-16 fighter jets and tried to contact the pilot, who was unresponsive, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.

The planes created a sonic boom over the US capital as they pursued the Cessna, authorities said.

Residents of the city and its suburbs reported hearing the thunderous noise, which rattled windows and shook walls for miles and caused social media to light up with people asking what had happened.

Several residents said they heard the noise as far away as Northern Virginia and Maryland.

“NORAD aircraft have been cleared to travel at supersonic speeds and residents of the region may have heard a sonic boom,” the statement said, adding that the fighter jets also used flares in an attempt to get the attention of the pilot. .

Meanwhile, the US Capitol Complex in Washington, DC, “was briefly placed on elevated alert until the plane left the area,” Capitol Police said on Twitter.

The episode brought back memories of the 1999 crash of a Learjet that lost cabin pressure and flew aimlessly across the country with professional golfer Payne Stewart on board. The plane crashed in a South Dakota meadow, killing six people.

In the case of Stewart’s flight, the plane lost cabin pressure, causing the occupants to lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen.

Similarly, a small US private plane with an unresponsive pilot crashed off the east coast of Jamaica in 2014 after going far off course and triggering a US security alert that included a fighter jet escort.