The White House on Monday shed additional light on the incident that caused a sonic boom to be heard throughout the Washington, D.C., region a day earlier, explaining that six F-16 military jets were scrambled to intercept a private aircraft that entered restricted airspace.
John Kirby, a White House spokesperson on national security issues, said the jets were activated as part of a standard response when private aircraft wander into secure airspace and have to be notified to leave.
Under the process, the government radios to pilots that they have to get out of restricted airspace. But if a pilot is nonresponsive and continues on course, then NORAD has the authority to put aircraft up to send the message, which is what happened Sunday, Kirby said.
Six F-16s from three different air bases on the East Coast, including nearby Joint Base Andrews, launched Sunday afternoon to intercept the Cessna plane that had entered restricted airspace.
“As I understand it, the two from Andrews were the first to reach the Cessna,” Kirby told reporters. “And they had to turn on the speed to get to them, which is why people here in the District area heard a sonic boom. They had to break the sound barrier to get up to speed to get to the aircraft in question.”
“When they did, they did exactly what they were supposed to do,” Kirby continued, saying military pilots tried to communicate to the pilot over the radio and make themselves visible to the other aircraft.
“Tragically it ended, obviously, in the crash and the death of all on board,” Kirby said.
President Biden was briefed on the incident. He spent Sunday afternoon playing golf near Joint Base Andrews.
Kirby said it would not be uncommon for the Pentagon to conduct a review of the response to Sunday’s incident, but called it “textbook.”
“Having observed this myself for many years, what I saw was just a classic textbook response to, in this case, what was an unresponsive pilot and aircraft, again, with a completely tragic outcome,” Kirby said.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the Cessna took off from Elizabethton, Tenn., on Sunday and was headed for a Long Island airport when it turned and flew on a path toward Washington, D.C., before crashing around 3:30 p.m. in rural Virginia.
The sonic boom caused by the fighter jets lit up social media, with District residents questioning the cause.