US F-16 fighters “intercepted” a small plane with passengers that crashed near Washington

The government statement says that the pilot of the private plane did not respond to the notices of the military aircraft

fighter planes F-16 of the US Armed Forces intercepted this Sunday the device that crashed in the vicinity of Washington D.C., after the pilot did not respond to attempts to contact him. The plane was carrying four passengers, according to US media.

He North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD, in English) reported in a statement that the F-16s used flares to get the pilot’s attention, without him responding, until his plane was intercepted around 3:20 p.m. local time (7:20 p.m. GMT).

“In coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, NORAD F-16 fighter jets responded to an aircraft Cessna 560 Citation V”, that it did not respond to its signals and that it was flying over Washington and Virginia, the note points out.

NORAD explained that the F-16s flew “at supersonic speeds” so it is possible that the inhabitants of the area heard “a sonic boom”; a roar that was heard in parts of the capital.

after try to call without success the attention of the Cessna pilot with the flares, the military planes intercepted the aircraft.

“The pilot was unresponsive and consequently the Cessna crashed near the George Washington National Forest, Virginia. NORAD tried to establish contact with the pilot until the plane crashed,” the text states.

An official of the White House said in a statement that the president Joe Biden, who was this Sunday playing golf with his brother near the joint base andrews, on the outskirts of the capital, in Maryland, has been informed about this incident and added that the sound coming from the planes was faintly heard in the area where the president was.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, for its acronym in English) confirmed in a statement that the Cessna aircraft, with a capacity up to 12 passengers, crashed at around 3:30 p.m. local time (1903 GMT) in a “mountainous area” near Montebello, in Virginia.

The FAA, which is investigating the crash, said the plane was bound for MacArthur Airport on Long Island, in the state of NY, and that he had left the city of Elizabethton, in Tennessee, in the south of the pass.

He security Department of the city of Washington, where both the residence of the US president and the headquarters of the Congress of the country and other institutions, indicated to its inhabitants shortly after the alarms went off due to the noise that was heard in the capital that there was no active threat.

The emergency office Annapolis, Maryland He stressed on his Twitter account that the noise was “caused by an authorized Department of Defense flight” breaking the sound barrier and reaching supersonic speed.