Photo: Pedro Vilela/AFP/Getty Images
A small plane crashed this Sunday in southwestern Virginia, near Washington DC, the capital of the United States, according to local authorities.
A Cessna Citation aircraft crashed in a “mountainous, sparsely populated area” in Virginia, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The plane was bound for MacArthur Airport on Long Island, in the state of New York, and had left the city of Elizabethton, in the state of Tennessee, in the south of the country, the FAA said, adding that it is investigating the causes of the accident.
Cessna plane crashes into “mountainous terrain” in southwest Virginia; unsure if connected to loud noises heard throughout the DMV https://t.co/IYYBDrc3Qe
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) June 4, 2023
According to sources in the Washington Post, the accident was related to a sonic boom heard in the DC area Sunday afternoon.
“The loud bang heard in the DMV area was caused by an authorized DOD flight,” a statement from the Annapolis Office of Emergency Management said. “This flight caused a sonic boom. That is all the information available at this time.”
According to a US official, authorities were concerned about an unresponsive plane flying an odd flight path over the DC area. The F-16s rushed to investigate and saw that the pilot of the aircraft had passed out. The official said the plane crashed later.
For its part, the Department of Security of the city of Washington, where both the residence of the US president and Congress are located, indicated to its inhabitants that there is no active threat.
“We are aware of the reports from communities in the capital area that heard a loud noise this afternoon,” the agency said on its Twitter account.
For now, there is no information on how many people were on board the plane or on the state in which they are. The Cessna Citation aircraft are business jets, with a capacity of up to 12 passengers, according to the company’s website.
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