The Pentagon is on an Elevated Alert in the Context of World War II: A Flight from Elizabethtown, Tenn., into Long Island MacArthur
“Search efforts are still underway by state and local law enforcement,” a state police spokesperson said in an email Sunday evening. “Nothing has been located at this time.”
As it flew over the nation’s capital region, the Capitol Complex was briefly placed on an elevated alert until the airplane left the area, a Capitol police spokesperson said in a statement.
A plane that was unresponsive was picked up by military jets before it crashed in southwest Virginia, according to officials. Fighter jets made loud noises as they raced toward the nation’s capital region.
A Cessna Citation aircraft, a business jet, departed from Elizabethton, Tenn., and was bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, the FAA said. But instead of landing, the plane turned around over Long Island and flew a straight path over D.C.
He explains that the military dispatched fighters because the threat level was not high enough to evacuate President Biden.
The National Capital Region Coordination Center: A “Head-butt” Procedure for Airborne Interferometry in the Presence of an Unresponsive Aircraft
“There is something called the National Capital Region Coordination Center, in an undisclosed location in which the FAA, Homeland Security agencies and the military are all co-located,” McCormick says. They are constantly watching the airspace in and around the area.
If the same event happened in the central United States, then officials in charge of Washington’s sensitive airspace would need to react more and that would be significant.
In this instance, they did not. “They were able to visually acquire the aircraft, they were able to actually see inside the cockpit and see that the air crew appears to be non-responsive, to make a determination that aircraft is not a threat. And they chose not to shoot it down.”
The plane set off alarms because of the many sensitive potential targets in the D.C. region, but McCormick says the unresponsive jet would have caused a stir in any part of the U.S.
If the plane is running out of fuel, the military can simply fly with it until it reaches a point where it can’t get any more fuel.
He says that they want to visually be in the line of sight of the people in the cockpit. If anyone in the cockpit is alert and conscious, the thinking goes, seeing a military aircraft approach would help them realize something has gone wrong.
A “head-butt” might sound dramatic, but it’s not like what you’ve probably seen in movies, where a fighter gets alarmingly close to another plane — possibly inverted. In the real world, two fighters are normally sent on an intercept, McCormick says: One jet takes a position behind the wayward aircraft while the other jet flies toward it from the forward direction.
“Once they get a visual acquisition on the aircraft, they do what they call a head-butt procedure,” McCormick says, “where they will fly close to the aircraft and they get a visual on it, then try to get the aircraft to see them. The next step would be shooting flares.
The system also includes national defense and homeland defense agencies, quickly elevating information to higher levels. Senior officials can make decisions about military intervention at that point.
The events of 9/11 have caused protocols to be in place at all the air traffic control facilities.
An air traffic controller is unable to talk to an aircraft immediately, and then their supervisor begins a call to the Domestic event Network, a communication line for all air traffic control facilities.
The aircraft will just continue heading on its current heading and flight path until the crew is able to return to work.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/05/1180158019/plane-crash-virginia-dc-long-island-cessna
The crash of a golfer’s plane from Elizabethton, Tenn., to Long Island, MacArthur Airport in Virginia, according to McCormick
He believes that it must have been programmed in the autopilot flight control system for the next leg to be from New York back to Tennessee.
The plane’s flight path is one detail that interests the man. The jet had flown to New York as planned — and then turned back south, only to crash. There is an idea that the plane’s crew lost consciousness before reaching Long Island.
In 1999 the crash of a golfer killed Payne Stewart and in 2005 the crash of a plane that killed 121 people was linked to this.
“We have had corporate aircraft that have lost pressurization and everybody on board loses consciousness. The aircraft does not stop flying until it exhausts the fuel and crashes.
“Everything I’ve read about it since then supports that,” McCormick says, adding that he believes the aircraft lost pressure on its northbound journey from Elizabethton, Tenn., to Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York.
If the air pressure on the plane plummets quickly to around 35,000 feet, no one would have enough time to put on a mask before the plane goes into unconsciousness. The change would be more gradual if the craft lost pressure over a longer period.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/05/1180158019/plane-crash-virginia-dc-long-island-cessna
The tragic tragic loss of a family of four: A business jet, flares and missiles in U.S. airspace: The Rumpel case
As McCormick says, “It’s very unfortunate, and from what’s available in open press, I can see that it was a tremendous loss of life, of almost an entire family.”
The Cessna Citation business jet was registered to Florida-based Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc. As The Associated Press reports, “John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were aboard the plane. They returned to their home on Long Island after visiting his house in North Carolina.
The pilot, three passengers and the plane’s owner were killed when the aircraft crashed more than a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Virginia State Police told NPR.
“Six F-16s from three different air bases” were launched, according to John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson. “They had to turn on the speed to get to him, which is why people here in the District area heard a sonic boom,” he said on Monday.
He helped implement the protocols for the airspace around the US capital. He is an assistant professor at the university.
Flares, a “head-butt” maneuver and missiles at the ready: Those are some of the military’s options when a wayward aircraft raises alarms in U.S. airspace. The options were in play on Sunday afternoon when a plane crashed in Virginia, flying over Washington, D.C.