Large explosion heard across Washington DC area at 3.15pm
WASHINGTON – Residents of Washington D.C. reported hearing a loud boom across a wide area on Sunday but fire department and homeland security officials said they had no reports of any incidents.
“We have no active incidents,” a spokesperson for the fire department said.
“There is no threat at this time,” the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management said on Twitter.
Residents of the U.S. capital flocked to Twitter to report hearing a loud boom they said shook the ground and to ask if anyone had any information on what it was. A Reuters journalist was among those who heard it.
The cause of the noise is unclear. The Fairfax County Police Department said it initially believes the sound to have come from an aircraft.
The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency tweeted it was aware of the reported noise, and “there is no threat at this time.”
Police and fire departments in Fairfax and Anne Arundel counties, in addition to the District, said they were working to determine its source.
Did anyone record a loud boom not long ago in the #WashingtonDC area? People say it sounded like an #earthquake, but there is nothing on seismometers. Let us know @fox5dc #noearthquake.
— Jennifer Delgado (@JenDelgadoFOX) June 4, 2023
Update: This was a sonic boom from a Department of Defense aircraft, according to officials
Annapolis Police say the cause of the noise in the DMV area was an authorized Department of Defense aircraft..
Officers say the aircraft caused a sonic boom afterwards.
Local police departments including the Metropolitan Police Department and the Bowie Police Department in Maryland said they sent units to neighborhoods around the area and they couldn’t find any other source for the sound of the explosion.
In a likely unrelated but uniquely timed incident, the press pool has reported on an extra security sweep and, during the time of the confusion online over the boom in D.C., that the pool was “diverted” from the president’s motorcade.
The loud boom that was heard across the DMV area was caused by an authorized DOD flight. This flight caused a sonic boom. That is all the information available at this time.
— Annapolis OEM (@AnnapolisOEM) June 4, 2023
This is a developing story. Refresh Ya Libnan for updates.
HERE IS ANOTHER UPDATE as provided by Forbes
The sonic boom heard around the Washington D.C. area on Sunday afternoon was caused by F-16 fighter jets scrambled by air defense officials to intercept a small private plane with an unresponsive pilot, which entered the airspace over the national capital before crashing in Virginia with no survivors found.
Authorities from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) scrambled as many as six F-16s from three separate airbases after the pilot of a Cessna jet—reportedly carrying four people—became unresponsive while the plane entered restricted airspace over Washington D.C.
Two F-16s launched from Joint Base Andrews had been authorized to fly at supersonic speeds, which caused a loud sonic boom around 3:10 a.m. local time over D.C. and parts of Maryland and Virginia.
Several residents in the region took to social media and reported hearing a loud explosion that shook houses and windows, which was followed by a statement from D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management saying they were aware of reports of a “loud ‘boom’” adding there was “no threat at this time.”
Various local authorities confirmed on social media that jets launched from Andrews caused the sonic boom.
NORAD’s statement added the fighters also deployed flares to draw the attention of the Cessna pilot, which may have been visible from the ground, but the Cessna eventually crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia.
(Reuters)/ Independence
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