Cessna over DC, supersonic boom

[rubytue]

yesterday, a Cessna was on track to fly over DC, not making contact, and they scrambled F16s and authorized them to go supersonic over land. Current working theory is the plane depressurized and went into autopilot when the pilot lost consciousness. I find it facinating since that was a theory of MH360. 

Gift link: wapo.st/3Nf6SZ2

[prettypitties]

We live about 40 miles east of DC (on the other side of the bay) and heard a very loud BOOM yesterday afternoon. It sounded like a car had hit the house or something. After about an hour of conjecture on our area's Facebook page (house explosion was the top contender), it slowly came out about military jets being authorized to go supersonic during training. Then later the real story came out about the unresponsive Cessna.

[mrshandy]

I definitely heard it from my house in the DC burbs like 20 min away. I thought it was just local to our neighborhood at first like a big car accident or a transformer exploding. We live in a pretty urban area where weird stuff seems to happen often.

It's the talk of the town around here. This is the first I have heard that people died in the crash. That's awful and crazy that they flew that far on autopilot.

[TR]

I hope the passengers/his family all lost consciousness before the crash, too

[yellow23]

We live about 30 miles west of DC and it was heard very loudly here, houses shook, my neighbors storm door flew open. Initial local speculation was that Quantico had a training session go wrong. The training grounds aren’t super far from us and can be heard pretty well occasionally. I think that theory was replaced with the fighter jet training exercise pretty quickly. It took a while before the news of what actually happened was reported.

[gardengal]

I thought it was a cannon b/c, hey, there's working cannons around here that ceremonially go off.

Then I heard about the fighter jets

But I didn't realize it was because of a private plane & that 4 people died. So very sad.

[pixy0stix]

I read about this yesterday, and I'm amused at how many people don't know what a sonic boom sounds like. I grew up in the buttcrack of nowhere NE, which is perfect for training flights for numerous western Air Force bases. I can't tell you how frequently they occurred, but it was enough that they never phased me or I wondered what they were.

[karinothing]

We didn't hear anything in Arlington, but how sad for the family.

[mcsangel2]

Jun 5, 2023 14:07:10 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I read about this yesterday, and I'm amused at how many people don't know what a sonic boom sounds like. I grew up in the buttcrack of nowhere NE, which is perfect for training flights for numerous western Air Force bases. I can't tell you how frequently they occurred, but it was enough that they never phased me or I wondered what they were.

I'm 51 and live in a major metro area, and I haven't heard a sonic boom since I was a young kid.

[rubytue]

Jun 5, 2023 14:07:10 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I read about this yesterday, and I'm amused at how many people don't know what a sonic boom sounds like. I grew up in the buttcrack of nowhere NE, which is perfect for training flights for numerous western Air Force bases. I can't tell you how frequently they occurred, but it was enough that they never phased me or I wondered what they were.

Yeah, most people wouldn’t have many chances to hear one in their normal day to day. Even when the concord was flying from Dulles, it wasn’t allowed to go supersonic until it cleared land. Because of the house rattling events.

I didn’t hear this yesterday, but I did use to live by an army proving ground, and we had booms all the time. It would t have phased me then. Now that I’ve not been there for 10 years, and there is nothing nearby to boom on the regular, yeah, it would. The WP link had videos from ring cameras, and yeah, from what they showed, sounded like an explosion. I do suspect that even for those familiar with the sound… would they really hear a boom, have a house rattle, and thing “oh, that’s just a jet going supersonic over a major metro area.” Context is important and… a supersonic boom in the middle of a Sunday over DC is out of context. 

[mrshandy]

Growing up in Norfolk near multiple military bases I had heard one before. But don't remember if it was more than once.

[dirtyred]

Jun 5, 2023 14:07:10 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I read about this yesterday, and I'm amused at how many people don't know what a sonic boom sounds like. I grew up in the buttcrack of nowhere NE, which is perfect for training flights for numerous western Air Force bases. I can't tell you how frequently they occurred, but it was enough that they never phased me or I wondered what they were.

My dad was a test pilot and we were stationed at Edward's for several years. The glass panes in the windows were loose so they wouldn't shatter from all the sonic booms.

[Deleted]

This is so sad. It sounds like there may have cabin decompression, which resulted in hypoxia. I have never flown this model of aircraft, but I’ve flown similar aircraft, and they all have some kind of low cabin pressure warning that would prompt the crew and passengers to don emergency masks and descend to a safe altitude (pressurization and oxygen generally aren’t needed below 10,000 feet). In fact the immediate action checklist in all of these scenarios is “Oxygen Masks - Don/100%.” Pilots with military experience would for sure know what to do, and I HOPE most civilian pilots would too, but it’s very possible that a civilian pilot wouldn’t have been as well-trained.

[shananagins]

This is so sad, but did anyone see this article? Am I reading it right? Halfway through it says the owner of the plane and his wife adopted the woman when she was 40 years old? What? I didn't know that was a thing that happens. 

[mcsangel2]

The pilot was seen as slumped over...does anyone else think that the plane was shot down as soon as it was over an unpopulated area as opposed to crashing on it's own? ETA: I do see that the CNN article states it was NOT shot down, but not sure I totally believe that.

[tacokick]

Jun 5, 2023 18:53:10 GMT -5 shananagins said:

This is so sad, but did anyone see this article? Am I reading it right? Halfway through it says the owner of the plane and his wife adopted the woman when she was 40 years old? What? I didn't know that was a thing that happens. 

It is weird but you can! Sometimes people do it so non related people they are close to can inherit more easily. Like in this case they said their child had died so maybe they didn’t have other heirs?

Sometimes it happens if a person needs medical help or care and it’s easier to be related.

I don’t think it’s common though!

[tacoflavoredkisses]

Jun 5, 2023 13:48:27 GMT -5 yellow23 said:

We live about 30 miles west of DC and it was heard very loudly here, houses shook, my neighbors storm door flew open. Initial local speculation was that Quantico had a training session go wrong. The training grounds aren’t super far from us and can be heard pretty well occasionally. I think that theory was replaced with the fighter jet training exercise pretty quickly. It took a while before the news of what actually happened was reported.

We are probably in the same approximate area because I was outside when it happened and while it was loud I just shrugged and said “must be something new at Quantico.”

I feel awful for the people who died and grateful it didn’t harm anyone else at impact.

[krystee]

@
How devastating for the family to lose their only child once and then their only living child and grandchild again. That is absolutely brutal.

If she HAD been conscious, she would have been able to respond over the radio, right? I am hoping they were all unconscious and did not have to live with this terror.

[Deleted]

Jun 5, 2023 18:58:47 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

The pilot was seen as slumped over...does anyone else think that the plane was shot down as soon as it was over an unpopulated area as opposed to crashing on it's own? ETA: I do see that the CNN article states it was NOT shot down, but not sure I totally believe that.

No, it ran out of fuel. They would have no reason to shoot it down once it had flown past Washington.

[rubytue]

Jun 5, 2023 18:53:10 GMT -5 shananagins said:

This is so sad, but did anyone see this article? Am I reading it right? Halfway through it says the owner of the plane and his wife adopted the woman when she was 40 years old? What? I didn't know that was a thing that happens. 

I have heard of adult adoptions. But it was my college boyfriend who was finally adopted by the man who raised him (but also, wasn’t married to his mom. They got married when BF was 22 and did they he was adopted so he could legally be the same last name). This seems not at all similar.  And considering the situation, I don’t want to speculate, because it’s tragic all around.

[lostrn]

Jun 5, 2023 14:23:05 GMT -5 karinothing said:

We didn't hear anything in Arlington, but how sad for the family.

So sad for the family. We were over in Springfield at the time car shopping and didn't hear a thing.

[mcppalmbeach]

This is so terribly sad.

I just ran through some material on plane depressurization and I’d feel fine never flying again.

[mrsukyankee]

It probably would have triggered bad memories around living in the area during 9/11.

[calmcosmo]

Jun 5, 2023 15:43:19 GMT -5 dirtyred said:

Jun 5, 2023 14:07:10 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I read about this yesterday, and I'm amused at how many people don't know what a sonic boom sounds like. I grew up in the buttcrack of nowhere NE, which is perfect for training flights for numerous western Air Force bases. I can't tell you how frequently they occurred, but it was enough that they never phased me or I wondered what they were.

My dad was a test pilot and we were stationed at Edward's for several years. The glass panes in the windows were loose so they wouldn't shatter from all the sonic booms.

My husband was a test pilot. He was doing a test flight near Patuxent River NAS in an F-18 and went nose-down out of a maneuver and accidentally broke the sound barrier. That was a funny dinner conversation with my then-28 year old husband. “I got in a little trouble after my flight today…”

We are 42 now and every once in awhile if he has a bad day at work I’ll say “at least you didn’t cause a sonic boom over the DC area”.

[karinothing]

Jun 6, 2023 0:22:32 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

It probably would have triggered bad memories around living in the area during 9/11.

Yes. I didn't live here then, but a lot of my coworkers did. Back in 2011 when we had the earth quake our entire office building shook. We were in a building where folks say the pentagon plane come down. We had a lot of people who thought it was another attack and really struggled. The incident this weekend invoked similar feelings for a lot of folks. I mean I think everyone is on edge here any time a plane enters restricted airspace and it took a while for them to come out with a reason for the sound. 

[omgzombies]

Jun 6, 2023 0:22:32 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

It probably would have triggered bad memories around living in the area during 9/11.

Yes.  My first thought was to start thinking about portable water options and make sure everyone had shoes on in case we needed to quickly evacuate, what supplies we had at our disposal should we need to shelter in place, and how I would make my way back to my family (I was over at a friends house) if it was indeed something like an attack.  It was tense for a bit while we sat and pieced together what happened.  Our best guess when it happened was sonic boom, but then we were stuck trying to figure out why jets would have been scrambled over NOVA and DC, and "training exercise" which was the initial report didn't seem likely when they never ever do exercises like that over our area.  Still clearly a bit jumpy after 9/11.

[Velar Fricative]

Hearing that boom would have freaked me the fuck out, as I've never heard a sonic boom before. My mind would have gone to some sort of 9/11-esque thought immediately too.

The path the flight ended up taking was also eerily remiscent of the Flight 93 path (in terms of that sharp turn backwards, not the actual locations), and obviously we know that path was intentional. From what I read, this pilot somehow made (intentionally or not) a very sharp turn backwards. Not knowing anything about where various flight controls are, I suppose he could have collapsed onto the mechanism used to turn the plane but then it straightened out as if they were heading back towards their departure site. Because they were seen as unresponsive I don't believe there was intention behind it, but I guess my expectation would have been that the plane would have just been meandering past Long Island towards perhaps New England or Canada (land or waters).

[litebright]

Jun 6, 2023 7:55:08 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Hearing that boom would have freaked me the fuck out, as I've never heard a sonic boom before. My mind would have gone to some sort of 9/11-esque thought immediately too.

The path the flight ended up taking was also eerily remiscent of the Flight 93 path (in terms of that sharp turn backwards, not the actual locations), and obviously we know that path was intentional. From what I read, this pilot somehow made (intentionally or not) a very sharp turn backwards. Not knowing anything about where various flight controls are, I suppose he could have collapsed onto the mechanism used to turn the plane but then it straightened out as if they were heading back towards their departure site. Because they were seen as unresponsive I don't believe there was intention behind it, but I guess my expectation would have been that the plane would have just been meandering past Long Island towards perhaps New England or Canada (land or waters).

Huh. I swear I read in early versions of this story that the turnaround at NY was actually one of the things that led investigators to think that the plane was already on autopilot at that point. Like it would automatically head back toward its originating point if it was not landed? 

Now there's an updated WaPo story that says that would be unexpected behavior even if the plane was on autopilot. 

www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/06/05/dc-sonic-boom-cessna-ntsb-investigation/

From the story: Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said the route was perplexing and will be a focus for investigators. He said it would not be normal for a plane to set out for a destination, then make a U-turn and head toward where it started, even if autopilot capabilities were guiding the plane.

“It’s very unclear why it made this maneuver so close to its intended destination,” Shahidi said. “The aircraft, especially the Cessna airplane, it has to be directed by the pilot to take a certain flight path and altitude.”

[Velar Fricative]

Jun 6, 2023 8:22:18 GMT -5 litebright said:

Jun 6, 2023 7:55:08 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Hearing that boom would have freaked me the fuck out, as I've never heard a sonic boom before. My mind would have gone to some sort of 9/11-esque thought immediately too.

The path the flight ended up taking was also eerily remiscent of the Flight 93 path (in terms of that sharp turn backwards, not the actual locations), and obviously we know that path was intentional. From what I read, this pilot somehow made (intentionally or not) a very sharp turn backwards. Not knowing anything about where various flight controls are, I suppose he could have collapsed onto the mechanism used to turn the plane but then it straightened out as if they were heading back towards their departure site. Because they were seen as unresponsive I don't believe there was intention behind it, but I guess my expectation would have been that the plane would have just been meandering past Long Island towards perhaps New England or Canada (land or waters).

Huh. I swear I read in early versions of this story that the turnaround at NY was actually one of the things that led investigators to think that the plane was already on autopilot at that point. Like it would automatically head back toward its originating point if it was not landed? 

Now there's an updated WaPo story that says that would be unexpected behavior even if the plane was on autopilot. 

www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/06/05/dc-sonic-boom-cessna-ntsb-investigation/

From the story: Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said the route was perplexing and will be a focus for investigators. He said it would not be normal for a plane to set out for a destination, then make a U-turn and head toward where it started, even if autopilot capabilities were guiding the plane.

“It’s very unclear why it made this maneuver so close to its intended destination,” Shahidi said. “The aircraft, especially the Cessna airplane, it has to be directed by the pilot to take a certain flight path and altitude.”

Yup, that's the part that had baffled me. I was also thinking of Payne Stewart's plane and how it just kept going and going and going, but that's obviously only one example so maybe there are others I'm unaware of where it does fly back somehow. It overflew the airport on Long Island so I feel like by then the pilot was not conscious but who knows. 

[candreco]

DS and I heard it about 15 miles south of DC, we were outside walking the dog. I don't think we would have heard it if we were inside with the windows closed though.

So sad, I hope they're able to figure out what happened.