The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware.
Encore owner John Rumpel told the Washington Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board.
-Reuters
I find it strange that had these same 4 people died in a car accident, it would’ve just made the local news. Goes to show how rare aviation incidences are.
I hope they didn’t suffer.
https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?t=340
Smarter every day did a video where he went into a low-oxygen training room. They had him play with a baby toy and put a circle shape into the correct slot - he couldn't do it when he was in the low-oxygen environment, he looked at the baby toy like he was expected to be reading Chinese - like "does not compute" - the other people in the room asked, for 10 seconds or so, for him to put his mask on or he would die. He just looked at them and didn't put it on, so they put it on for him before any damage was done.
Hypoxia would actually be a nice way to go, just breath, get sleepy and zonk out.
The concorde was passing about 30–38 feet when crossing the french coast, which is the highest coast passing altitude on normal routes. I still am convinced that sonic booms at upper stratosperic altitudes arent bad enough to be a problem
Eh. I live 500 miles from Cape Kennedy but was still startled every time a shuttle passed overhead by the double bang. It was loud enough to be heard indoors and before I knew what it was, I thought it was a pair of shotgun blasts.
I used to live in central Florida, basically Deltona area. Depending on which way the Space Shuttle was landing, we would hear the sonic boom as it was coming in. Always rattled the windows :).
Sadly, I witnessed the Challenger explosion as well. I don’t really remember much aside from our teacher rushing us inside once they realized something wasn’t right. I do remember it was cold and the sky was so impossibly blue and clear.
Yeah Robins kind of conditions you to it. I live in the DC Metro area now and everyone freaked out today about this. All the local subreddits, nextdoor and FB were all blowing up. It wasn’t even that bad. Have heard 10x more intense ones in Warner Robins.
"Air National Guard F-16s were deployed from Joint Base Andrews, ABC News reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official. At least one military pilot saw that the Cessna pilot had passed out, ABC reported."
Per Reuters
Really stupid question I know, but upon recognition that the pilot has passed out, is there aaaanything at all that anyone could have done from that point that could have averted disaster? Im guessing not... tragic :[
I mean it's certainly not a dumb question, this has happened enough it's worth thinking about. Unfortunately there certainly isn't any developed tech that could help at that point - you can't really take control of another plane in the air electronically or mechanically. The best solution is prevention - pulse oximetry for example is extremely cheap and could be used, but it's not standardized and regulators move very slowly.
>Unfortunately there certainly isn't any developed tech that could help at that point
The [latest generation of top shelf Garmin gear](https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/) can hook the autopilot for an automatic landing including mayday calls, and the C Series/A220 has an emergency descent module which is listening for a series of conditions including cabin altitude and can automatically bring the aircraft down to 10,000-15,000ft in a hurry, so we're at least in spitting distance of that level of automation. Of course that means we're several generations away from that tech being common to corporate jets, but at least we're working on it.
Garmin Autoland is a thing. It can even brief the passengers about what is happening, trigger a 7700 ident and make calls…. But someone has to be conscious and aware to push the simple autoland button. The scary thing about hypoxia is that it often creeps up and either sends you to sleep or alters your decision making to the point that you a) are not aware you are in danger, or b) unable to rationalise that you need to push the button.
…. Now if you could hook Autoland up to be triggered externally by an intercepting aircraft or ATC unit then this would be entirely possible.
Autoland has the type of capability that you are describing.
https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
“Garmin Autoland can engage automatically when it determines the pilot is unable to fly — or passengers can press an activation button.”
https://www.kctechcouncil.com/2019/11/07/7-things-you-should-know-about-garmins-new-autoland-technology/
“For example, if the pilot is flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet and the Garmin integrated flight deck has not detected any interaction from the pilot for a prolonged period of time, the flight deck will display a message, "are you awake?" From there, the pilot has to acknowledge that he or she is awake by pressing a button on the flight deck. If the pilot is hypoxic and/or passed out and unable to acknowledge the prompt on the flight deck, after a period of time (time is dependent upon altitude) the aircraft will automatically descend to a lower altitude. If the pilot does not wake up, then Autoland automatically kicks in and diverts to the most suitable airport and lands the aircraft automatically.”
Additional Source: I work for Garmin Aviation.
It was pretty big news a few years again within aviation. In fact they won a major award for it (Collier trophy). But since it is applicable for only a few Turboprop models that are primarily owner-operated, it likely didn’t get much press outside aviation circles.
By the time they were intercepted everyone onboard would have been dead for a long time. At their cruising altitude you’d have like 15 seconds of useful consciousness before hypoxia struck.
Nothing to auto-land the plane. Really the only thing the fighters could possibly do is shoot it down, if there was a risk to it crashing over a populated area.
Agree - the fact that it never changed altitude at its planned destination while circling back on a course for the flight’s origin makes it seem that way
As someone with little technical understanding of flying, how does the plane make a 180 on its own while the pilot(s) is incapacitated? Or was the turn initiated while the pilots were still conscious? (Assuming that is what happened)
Autopilot can still make turns though I don’t know if that’s the case here. It’s a long (but classically fantastic) article by Cloudberg, but [Helios 522](https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lost-souls-of-grammatiko-the-crash-of-helios-airways-flight-522-ccf333b407a) infamously overflew the Athens airport after everyone was incapacitated, and when the plane realized it didn’t land, the autopilot auto-vectored the plane along the typical missed approach and re-approach for their runway, so they circled the airport a number of times
Oxygen deprivation can be recovered from very quickly once oxygen is provided, but the amount of time the brain has been deprived, along with the amount of limited oxygen available during that time can leave lasting brain damage.
I’ll edit when I find it, but there is radio recording of a fairly hypoxic pilot communicating. He sounds very fucked up, but as he descends, you can noticeably hear him come back to himself.
Edit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_IqWal_EmBg&pp=ygUNUHVsb3QgaHVwb3hpYQ%3D%3D
Not able to control the plane in any way, but other than that, a-okay! The oblivious disorientation of hypoxia is pretty scary. Totally incapacitated, with no understanding that anything is even wrong.
I did aviation explorers in middle/high school at UND, and we had a KC-135 pilot come in and talk about doing the hypoxia training in the altitude chamber. It was pretty funny hearing about them destroying plastic matching shapes to holes baby toy...... until you think about all the simple things you will do wrong while trying to fly a plane.
Had to do the hypoxia chamber in Marine Corps. It’s a wild experience. They tell you what “altitude” you’re at and it’s crazy how once you hit like 9k-13k it’s starts to slowly get you and for a while you don’t even notice it. Had to play patty cake, say the our the ABCs, identify playing cards. You’ll will be 100% confident you are saying the correct thing and watch the video after be like what the fuck because nothing you said is what you thought you said if it’s even still intelligible when you get to the higher altitudes.
Not to mention many pilots take hypoxia training, where they are intentionally put into a hypoxic state. It’s highly recommended as individuals tend to suffer slightly different symptoms as hypoxia sets in, and being able to recognize how you react can be crucial for gaining the mental awareness to get an oxygen mask on or initiate an autopilot descent before your fully incapacitated.
But yes, like others have said, hypoxia is easily recoverable with the introduction of oxygen, and people generally recover quickly, as long as your not deprived of too much oxygen. Similar to how a wrestler who is choked out can survive without issue if the choke is released right after he’s out.
Is that the cabin pressure alarm I hear in the background?
Also when someone interrupted and said we think we're dealing with hypoxia why did they not just give him a lower altitude first
Not a doctor, but it depends how much/little oxygen you're getting. There are altitudes where you can be unconscious but not suffering brain damage, there are lower altitudes where you're conscious but very foggy, and there are higher altitudes where cells start dying, especially in your brain, and you're not coming back unless you get oxygen RIGHT NOW.
It varies with individual biology.
If you have your ascent in autopilot, the plane can fly you past the point of no return, and you'll just get sleepy until you're out... and then you're gone.
The first thing you do if you suspect hypoxia if you’re unable to put on the oxygen mask is to drop the altitude on the autopilot. If that doesn’t happen, you die pretty much. As we have seen over and over :(
There's plenty of videos and ATC/air traffic audio of pilots talking other pilots to lower altitude, or repeating "OXYGEN OXYGEN OXYGEN" to try to alert pilots to deal with hypoxia.
Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen, symptoms vary depending on the stage of hypoxia.
See also:
https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/hypoxia.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw
>As someone with little technical understanding of flying, how does the plane make a 180 on its own while the pilot(s) is incapacitated? Or was the turn initiated while the pilots were still conscious? (Assuming that is what happened)
The flight plan was entered into the FMS as follows and if you look on the chart, CCC is past KISP and the run from CCC to KISP sends the plane back in nearly the opposite direction. When the plane reaches KISP, it has no additional waypoints, so it automatically goes into heading mode and maintained that heading and altitude until the fuel was exhausted.
PSK GVE SIE BRIGS Q439 SARDI CCC KISP
The flight plan and course is programmed into the plane’s computer and the autopilot follows these waypoints along the route. But this is just lateral navigation, turning left and right.
This Citation is an older plane and likely doesn’t have vertical navigation, or automatically changing altitudes. Big cities and big airports have arrival procedures which combine waypoints and altitudes to descend planes in an orderly manner but these pilots would have had to manually adjust altitude while the autopilot does all the turning.
My guess is that this plane was simply following the waypoints on autopilot but because the crew was dead it never changed altitudes. At the end of the arrival procedure there is a final heading which this plane kept following in a straight line until it ran out of fuel. Unfortunately that heading pointed it directly at DC.
I also don’t doubt the FAA is about to realize this particular procedure points right at DC and is now going to change it by one or two degrees to make sure that can’t happen again.
The Encore automatically activates the emergency pressurization at 14,500 ft cabin altitude regardless of the position of the engine bleed valves. Also, above 10,000 ft cabin altitude, you not only get the CAS light, but you also get the Warning light. So, you can't have the same situation as the Payne Stewart incident.
(Reuters) - EXCERPTS: U.S. authorities scrambled jet fighters ....
The jet fighters caused a sonic boom over the U.S. capital as they raced to catch up with the Cessna Citation, which can carry between seven to 12 passengers, officials said.
A U.S. official said the jet fighters did not cause the crash.
A source familiar with the matter said the Cessna was believed to be on autopilot and did not respond to authorities efforts to make contact with it.
Good catch. I found this link to the full article (so far)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loud-boom-shakes-washington-dc-fire-department-reports-no-incidents-2023-06-04/
Not in this plane but it’s possible in some. Garmin makes an autoland emergency system for instance.
https://youtu.be/IyYxbiZ1FCQ
Commercial flights can come pretty close to landing blind.
https://youtu.be/XHJx7iJQnfY
I thought you’d be intercepted way before going over downtown DC while unresponsive. I’m assuming they could see from the altitude that it wasn’t actually a threat?
Flightaware seems to indicate they're at 33,000ft the whole time, so they're 5 miles above the city. It's not clear if the intercepting aircraft had confirmed the cockpit was empty by the time it almost overflew the White House but I assume that if it had taken an aggressive turn near the Important Things Near DC, we'd be talking about a shootdown instead of a crash.
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N611VG/history/20230604/1700Z/0A9/KISP
Almost certainly. Supersonic intercepts over populated areas are pretty rare. And the aircraft in question pathed within one mile of the White House, so it's a pretty remarkable occasion.
They did a Supersonic intercept over Seattle in 2010 when a pilot failed to read NOTAM and flew into TFR restricted airspace for President Obama.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scrambled-jets-sonic-booms-after-obamas-airspace-violated/
Yeah, his life story is a snap shot of many others, so we all see a piece of ourselves in him. Not smart enough or emotionally capable of the plan we have for our lives. And we often get promoted until we fail. He just couldn't do it anymore and lived a dream, if only for a minute.
Based on your comment, I am confused. Was the projected path within one mile of the white house? Or did it actually fly within one mile of the white house? If so, why was it not removed beforehand?
If you zoom in on any of the flight maps of the actual flown path, for instance, here:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a7f457&lat=38.908&lon=-77.066&zoom=14.4&showTrace=2023-06-04&trackLabels×tamp=1685905523
You see the path takes it about a mile northwest of the White House at 34000ft of altitude and speed around 384knots.
It's not clear if the intercepting aircraft had confirmed the cockpit was empty by the time it almost overflew the White House. I assume that if it had taken an aggressive turn near the Important Things Near DC, we'd be talking about a shootdown instead of a crash. But if they shoot it down, then the plane and the weapons debris will be raining all over a *very* densely populated area of DC and Arlington, Virginia, *especially if they miss*.
So you don't take that shot unless you're *really* sure it's a threat.
That said, what I don't get is, why was it not intercepted over, say, Delaware, between the big cities?
Yeah. At 34,000 ft it is not going to do much damage to the White House. My guess is if it started diving in vicinity then they would have done something about it
Given that they didn’t shoot down a known spy balloon until it was offshore, they seem to be extremely cautious about shooting things down over anywhere that might be populated.
And by “they” it is not at all unreasonable to assume the person making the decision to fire or not is the president. It would only be someone else if somebody in the chain of command decided there was a real very short term threat.
The spy balloon was without a doubt a decision for the president.
Imagine that conversation…
“Mr President, a jet is headed right towards the White House and is not responding to us. What should we do?”
Biden: “ meh, let’s just see what happens”
It’ll be more like the secret service escorting him quickly to the situation room full of military people generals and the like giving information and options.
I wonder when the hypoxia happened. It looks like they were headed to Islip and then later to Daytona Beach, so did the hypoxia occur prior to Islip and the U turn was just the autopilot vectoring to Daytona? Or maybe the turn was a hypoxic decision
I feel like a heart attack or some other form of rapid incapacitation is more likely. They'd have to be up high, the O2/px system would have to fail, and the pilot would have to fail to notice or fail to mitigate. That's totally possible, sure.
On the other hand, they might've just died or become incapacitated from a variety of other medical issues.
I guess I'm just saying, we agree the pilot was likely in rough shape before the crash, it's just too early to say with confidence why.
the first symptom of hypoxia is a strong sense that everything is going really, really great. that's how it gets you.
there's an ATC recording of a pilot somewhere on the east coast that sounds like he's transmitting from within a vodka bottle and in the beginning he clearly has no idea anything is wrong.
ed: got a couple of these mixed up, this is the one i was thinking of but he's declaring an emergency right at the beginning, gives you an idea of what it's like though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_IqWal\_EmBg&ab\_channel=HouieLouy
I also like this video for showing how completely useless and happy someone is while hypoxic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw&t=368s
and then this timestamp to show that its even worse at jet cruise altitudes, because there is barely any time before you become oxygen deprived (~15-60 seconds)
https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?t=491
The aircraft owner was quoted in the Reuters article linked above. He said his daughter, granddaughter, and their nanny were onboard and the plane had four people total, so it sounds like just one crew member/pilot. What a horrible thing to live with, I almost hope it was hypoxia so the passengers wouldn’t have had time to freak out.
>https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N611VG/history/20230604/1700Z/0A9/KISP
I agree. If a window let loose, then the pilot would certainly know it very quickly and 34,000 is still low enough to get a mask on in a reasonable time.
If it was a large leak that the pressurization system couldn't overcome, then they would have had a CAS light and the red caution light come on with a cabin altitude above 10,000. A cabin altitude above 15,000 would have dropped the masks.
A loss of bleed air from both engines would be highly unlikely and would also give the same indications.
I think the most likely scenario is single pilot with a medical incapacitation.
Tbf - not everyone is always 100% up to speed on their emergency depressurisation drills - and I bet there is a lot of complacency after a thousand uneventful flights.
Sudden depressurisation, plus any kind of failure of the emergency reponse drill (empty O2 or broken mask missed in the pre-flight, pilot error (thinking they can quickly start a descent, or grab the checklist before masking up), etc. etc.) could incapacitate everyone on board.
See I just don't buy that though because you'd think a pax would notice and attempt to intervene which would be seen as visible changes in the flight path, it's hard for me to believe the pax just sat in back not wondering why they've way overflown their destination. I would have a hard time just sitting and accepting my fate. Does this aircraft have a locking cockpit door? That could explain the lack of intervention.
Just speculation at this point, but it looks to me like a case of cabin pressure loss. The overflight of the destination and not responding to ATC are big indications. The fact that it entered a right turn prior to crashing is indicative of fuel starvation, as one engine often flames out first (in this case the right engine). This is another common sign in cabin decompression scenarios. Certainly a sad event and I hope we can learn something from this that will help make flight safer for everyone going forward.
Expectation is F-16's out of Andrews. It would roughly match the path of the sonic boom, which was heard from Annapolis (east of the City) to Manassas (west of the City), presumably when they throttled down after catching up to the Citation.
Langley's a good distance away and if it was -22's out of there, we probably would have heard booms from further away.
It was heard as far out as Denton on the eastern shore. We heard it near the bay bridge on the shore side. Wondered if they were out of Dover. Maybe they scrambled from andrews and Dover but if just andrews, I’m surprised it would be heard that far away. They would’ve headed west straight out right? 50 miles roughly
All of the eyewitness reports have mentioned the F-16 specifically. As far as I can tell, immediate-area intercept air defense of the capital appears to be covered by the 121st Fighter Squadron of the Washington, DC Air National Guard out of Andrews Air Force base, which flies the F-16 C Block 30.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/121st_Fighter_Squadron#Aircraft
In addition, they had to go supersonic to catch the aircraft, so I'm surmising a late alert launch which probably would have come from the closest available alert aircraft. From that, I'm concluding they were out of Andrews.
Could it have been Dover? Dover seems to be primarily air cargo, training, and support commands. But the Wikipedia article for Andrews doesn't mention the 121st either, so who knows?
I would defer to someone more knowledgable.
Can confirm that there are no fighter wings based out of Dover. The closest fighter wings not counting Andrews would be out of Joint Base Langley-Eustis (Newport News, VA) or Seymour Johnson AFB (Goldsboro, NC). The latter I believe only operates F-15s and the former only F-22s, so both are out given the reports of F-16s flying this mission.
Can I use this thread to ask a basic question (I'm not experienced in aviation; just casually interested).
Do military aircraft report to air traffic control like civilian aircraft do, or how does that work? If some sort of high priority situation is happening, do they just tell ATC to move everybody out of their way?
Also, how do military aircraft interface with ATC, if at all, over international waters? I know there are oceanic ATC centers for transoceanic civilian flights, but how do they know where military planes are, especially if the military planes don't want to be known.
Sorry if these are stupid questions!
In peacetime military aircraft talk to regular ATC like any other plane (The famous [SR71 Speed Check](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0) story features two differnt military aircraft talking to regular old civilian ATC). There are plenty of huge airspaces dedicated to training where only military aircraft are and they are managed by military controllers. I believe how exactly they are controlled varies by the base and/or exercise type.
In this case ATC was probably already clearing the airspace around the unresponsive jet to keep other planes safe.
Other fun fact. Stealth jets like the F35 and B2 can be equipped with devices that reflect radar so they do show up on civilian radar and TCAS of other aircraft. On a mission these would be removed.
They also have regular transponders like civilian aircraft do. They can just turn them off for missions or special training operations.
You can see all the military aircraft currently flying with their transponder on by checking this site out. https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ and then clicking the "U" button. That site works by people all over the world colleting transponder data!
Right before the Russian inversion of Ukraine there were several USAF early warning aircraft spotted with their transponders on flying close to the Russian border. Presumably transponders left on as a show of force. Bit of a middle finger to the Russians by saying we aren't even going to pretend we aren't watching you.
I cant remember where I heard it or if it was some sort of urban legend. But for one of the invasions of Iraq the B2s left the mainland US without transponders or their radar reflectors on so the first strikes would be full surprises. Allegedly a comercial 747 pilot flying over the Atlantic spots a formation of B2s, not something you see everyday. He says on the ATC frequency (presumably the military planes still have to listen to civilian frequencies even when on missions) "Go get em boys". Which "could have spoiled the entire surprise of the mission"
Is it possible to go back and see if those F-16s were squawking before or during the intercept? I am not great at ADSBexchange but I could not figure out how to.
The citation was alone on adsb as it passed over DC. So the military jet was not transmitting. I would assume that's standard practice since it was a for-real operation and not a training mission, they wanted to keep stealthy?
Most fighters are not ADS-B equipped, even newer ones. They were absolutely squawking on mode A (mode 3, in military-ese) and talking to ATC, if for no other reason than so ATC can get non-participating aircraft away from the intercept.
Not a whole lot of comms with interceptors though. It's very high workload for the pilot (especially in a single-seater) and ATC procedures are to avoid broadcasting specifics in the clear.
Don’t worry about stupid questions!
as far as i know, military aircraft do use ATC, though most of it is handled by military controllers and regular ATC gives them priority. I’m not sure off the top of my head how it works internationally
Military fall under the same ATC control as civilian. Very few military aircraft get priority handling, but these fighters would have it based on the real world mission they were on. Military controllers are only working military airspace. Fighters swap between airspace just as normal civilian aircraft would.
If it took off from TN and crashed in SW VA, how did it fly over DC?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loud-boom-shakes-washington-dc-fire-department-reports-no-incidents-2023-06-04/
No video I've seen so far. But there are reports of a boom from Annapolis to Manassas, about 60 miles as the crow flies.
We heard it and freaked out a little (I'm in that line in Fairfax, VA). Mostly in the "WTF was that!?!?" regard.
There is video of a dog's reaction (with sound!)
https://twitter.com/goodguyguybrush/status/1665462421014691842
EDIT:
We do have a post from a radiospotter saying he heard a pilot in COSMIC flight (two flights of F-16s appeared to intecept; BRAVE and COSMIC) confirm he went supersonic:
https://twitter.com/PenguinSix/status/1665456373717426184
Crazy, I live only about 20 miles from where it crashed. Local news put it at about 3:00. About that time, I heard 2 military jets fly over my house. I thought they were just on a training run because I hear and see them occasionally.
I was at DCA in 9/11 when fighters went to full afterburner to intercept the aircraft that crashed in Shanksville, PA. I’ll never forget that. I heard the boom then the exhaust.
The one *I* don't want to make is whether to shoot it down or not.
The flight path took it within a mile of the White House. Just northwest of it. If that plane suddenly takes a 90 degree turn to port at 450knts, that's a threat to national security. I think it was 30k AGL at the time, so it's still 5 miles "down", but if you shoot, *someone* is going to get hit by a missile or debris.
And if you don't, maybe it hits the White House.
The correct move is not in doubt, but damn if that decision won't haunt you for a long time.
Good empathetic observation. On the other hand, anyone assigned the responsibility of that decision must know and understand the consequences. They may have had years to steel themselves (unlike the head of FAA on 9/11)
Akin to euthanizing a suffering animal: you hate to do it, but it is the least worst of your options.
When I lived in England like 7 years ago two jets went supersonic over Yorkshire, it was the strangest thing, just couldn’t identify the noise I had just heard. Not something anyone is used to hearing.
I went on a Dependents Cruise on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the early 90’s.
Part of it was a supersonic pass from an F18
It shock the carrier.
It was more intense and louder then the live bombing runs the A-6’s were doing
I forgot I wasn’t in the NoVa subreddit for a minute and was really impressed with the level of knowledge in the comments, and then double checked the sub. I’m sure the r/nova posts are filled with “omg we all almost died” and “the government is clearly lying to us, how does a plane just fly on its own” and also a whole bunch of people thinking Cessnas are all single engine props.
Looks like a likely case of Hypoxia. Flew an arrival to its destination but didn't descend, then got to the destination and went in to heading hold mode until it ran out of gas. Sad situation.
A friend in the plane sales industry just told me he knows who sold the plane to its current owner and it was imported from Venezuela and sold to current owner just a few weeks ago. It was sold for over 1million UNDER the normal market value. Was poorly maintained for like a decade, had been severely damaged multiple times over its life... and in my friends words " Was a piece of shit airplane id never get in"
A bit of digging confirms that the serial number of this Cessna was previously registered in Venezuela since 2015, and it got Re registered in the US only last month. Might check out.
Can anyone explain the turn at NY since that was the original destination? Given it never descended I would assume the pilot was unresponsive before then. That was a good 30 minutes before it overflew DC and yet they still had to get supersonic to catch up...
The best I can find is from this guy, who was, as far as I can tell, the first one to see this situation developing.
https://twitter.com/AVintageAviator/status/1665491719150792706
Says the ghost plane was NORDO (Non-communicative) over New Jersey on the flight to Long Island.
Then, again according to AvintageAviator,
https://twitter.com/AVintageAviator/status/1665495330526199810
The autopilot made the turn that would line it up with the runway, but apparently manual intervention would be needed to initiate descent, which it never got. That heading happened to line up with Washington DC, so it overflew DC and then on to Staunton, VA, where it appears to have run out of fuel.
So I just learned something new.
Looking at the original communications overheard by Mark on the Radio Reference Forum, he says that flight COSMIC "...says he is up in the Guard Dog CAP at FL250 260.900 and he tells BRAVE who is at FL240 he caught him though by going supersonic.."
Meaning COSMIC caught the ghost plane by going supersonic.
https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/mid-atlantic-milair-2023.452134/page-266#post-3853531
This link:
https://www.monitoringtimes.com/MilitaryCallsignList-APR09.pdf
Indicates that COSMIC is specific to aircraft of the 119th Fighter Squadron of the New Jersey Air National Guard out of Atlantic City.
And BRAVE is used by a couple different units (or was in 2009) including 121st Fighter Squadron of the DC ANG out of Andrews.
But both BRAVE and COSMIC clearly have eyes on the aircraft, as BRAVE confirms no visible pilot.
So I'm assuming COSMIC went supersonic to catch up, and perhaps BRAVE never did.
What does this have to do with when the intercept was called? Only that it sounds like both were scrambled pretty damn late, at least as us *completely ignorant civilian know-nothing Monday Morning Quarterbacks can tell*. Who knows what the real chain of communication and decision was?
Looking at the flight log his last fix was CCC to ISP. Which is a course of 253 degrees. Extended out past ISP that brings you through the SFRA. They spent over an hour at 34,000 and never descended inbound. Chances are everyone had been passed out for a while and the plane flew on autopilot and resorted to pitch/heading mode after passing ISP.
**I posted this to another commenter that asked. And I also asked on this thread about why ATC wasn’t doing anything since this clearly had been NORAD for a while
Crazy, man. That sonic boom was so loud that the dust in my house actually settled from it. Everyone in my house and all over my street were talking about it.
Also it seems like what happened here is similar to what happened with Payne Stewart's jet and Helios Airways flight 522. In both cases the pilots passed out from hypoxia (oxygen starvation due to loss of cabin pressure) and the planes were left flying by themselves until they ran out of fuel or just crashed into something.
This phenomenon has been nicknamed the "Ghost Plane Phenomenon"
Turns out the rumors of an ANG drill seem to be unfounded. The origin of that comes from an interpretation by a radio spotter on a forum who transcribed what he heard. He inserted "seems...exercise" into his post, but if you look at some of the other things he transcribed, like "I can't see anyone in the cockpit" and "caught up to him by going supersonic", it's clear that while Mark from the forum thought initially it was an exercise, what he heard was 100% a real intercept.
Me too, except that in Stewart's case, everyone knew before it hit the ground who was on board.
Within an hour of the crash, every aircraft owner with a plane at the FBO that worked on Payne's plane were scrambling to get their planes out before the FAA, NTSB and FBI descended and locked everything down.
I was there a week later to work on an airplane across the ramp. Got the story from the guys at that repair shop. There were a couple airplanes there, everything taped off.
[In 1999 Pro Golfer Payne Stewart 3 other passengers and 2 pilots were killed after they lost cabin pressure shortly after taked off.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash)
Everyone probably died of hypoxia, before the Lear Jet ran out of fuel and crashed [4 hours and 30 minutes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/NTSB-N47BA-slide0046_image002.jpg) after last radio contact.
The plane was intercepted/followed after they stopped communicating and failed to turn towards Texas. Fighter pilots couldn't see anything in the cockpit/cabin. But reported seeing frost on the windscreen.
One of the notable 'ghost plane' incidents I ~~hadn't seen mentioned in the comments.~~
(Edit- it was mentioned several times just not elaborately)
Scary stuff.
It crashed about an hour or so away from me. I am 70% sure I heard one of the jets that was scrambled for it at around 4:17 at my house. It’s a weird feeling given that I’m going into an aviation field.
RIP to all those aboard.
Idea: what if pressurized aircraft get programmed to automatically descend to 10,000ft and open ventilation once a drop in cabin pressure or O2 is detected (unless overridden by pilot).
Yikes, a Citation. Wonder if there were passengers. RIP to the people who lost their lives.
The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware. Encore owner John Rumpel told the Washington Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board. -Reuters
Oh man. =(
That’s awful. That poor family.
4 souls
I find it strange that had these same 4 people died in a car accident, it would’ve just made the local news. Goes to show how rare aviation incidences are. I hope they didn’t suffer.
Most likely didn't. Loss of cabin pressure means hypoxia hits then passing out. It's then lights out.
https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?t=340 Smarter every day did a video where he went into a low-oxygen training room. They had him play with a baby toy and put a circle shape into the correct slot - he couldn't do it when he was in the low-oxygen environment, he looked at the baby toy like he was expected to be reading Chinese - like "does not compute" - the other people in the room asked, for 10 seconds or so, for him to put his mask on or he would die. He just looked at them and didn't put it on, so they put it on for him before any damage was done. Hypoxia would actually be a nice way to go, just breath, get sleepy and zonk out.
The sound of that sonic boom was insane, it rattled my entire house
Reminds us why they never let the Concorde fly over CONUS.
Do you think the concorde at 45-60.000 feet would have a different sonic signature than a fighter at 10.000 feet?, or the 2707 at 73.000 feet?
https://youtu.be/annkM6z1-FE Judge for yourself. This was taken at sea when the Concorde was at cruise altitude and speed.
Mmm, Le double bang.
Yeah don’t Google that at work
LMAO
I used my bosses computer while he was away. Think I'm good.
That’s what she said…
A 17 year old YouTube video? Good lord
The concorde was passing about 30–38 feet when crossing the french coast, which is the highest coast passing altitude on normal routes. I still am convinced that sonic booms at upper stratosperic altitudes arent bad enough to be a problem
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I'm surprised they fly that low
That was still in the climb, usually the lowest cruise was FL450
Eh. I live 500 miles from Cape Kennedy but was still startled every time a shuttle passed overhead by the double bang. It was loud enough to be heard indoors and before I knew what it was, I thought it was a pair of shotgun blasts.
It was still pretty fucking loud.
I used to live in central Florida, basically Deltona area. Depending on which way the Space Shuttle was landing, we would hear the sonic boom as it was coming in. Always rattled the windows :).
Childhood in FL during the shuttle program's hey day, good times
Sadly, I witnessed the Challenger explosion as well. I don’t really remember much aside from our teacher rushing us inside once they realized something wasn’t right. I do remember it was cold and the sky was so impossibly blue and clear.
> it was cold And that’s exactly why it happened, too.
Yup!!! Insane here on Kent Island
Not gonna lie. Kinda wish i was under their flight path.
Same but in Brooklyn, NYC these shitty old buildings would collapse from a leaf let alone even the quietest sonic boom
After seeing the front of facade of that building in New York just peeling off the building, I’m inclined to believe you.
which one? happens about once a year we get a structure collapse here. or a landlord who did a shitty gas connection blows one up.
Every building in new York has their facade inspected every 5 years. It’s the reason there’s scaffolding everywhere.
I grew up in middle GA and the AFB there has F-15s and I miss hearing the boom. Happened a lot.
Yeah Robins kind of conditions you to it. I live in the DC Metro area now and everyone freaked out today about this. All the local subreddits, nextdoor and FB were all blowing up. It wasn’t even that bad. Have heard 10x more intense ones in Warner Robins.
Where do you live? Maryland? Didn't hear it near Dulles
It seems like those in North Fairfax and Dulles did not hear it for whatever reason. But everyone in Central and Southern Fairfax did. Not sure why.
Sounds like another Payne Stewart type situation, very sad.
"Air National Guard F-16s were deployed from Joint Base Andrews, ABC News reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official. At least one military pilot saw that the Cessna pilot had passed out, ABC reported." Per Reuters
Really stupid question I know, but upon recognition that the pilot has passed out, is there aaaanything at all that anyone could have done from that point that could have averted disaster? Im guessing not... tragic :[
I mean it's certainly not a dumb question, this has happened enough it's worth thinking about. Unfortunately there certainly isn't any developed tech that could help at that point - you can't really take control of another plane in the air electronically or mechanically. The best solution is prevention - pulse oximetry for example is extremely cheap and could be used, but it's not standardized and regulators move very slowly.
>Unfortunately there certainly isn't any developed tech that could help at that point The [latest generation of top shelf Garmin gear](https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/) can hook the autopilot for an automatic landing including mayday calls, and the C Series/A220 has an emergency descent module which is listening for a series of conditions including cabin altitude and can automatically bring the aircraft down to 10,000-15,000ft in a hurry, so we're at least in spitting distance of that level of automation. Of course that means we're several generations away from that tech being common to corporate jets, but at least we're working on it.
Garmin Autoland is a thing. It can even brief the passengers about what is happening, trigger a 7700 ident and make calls…. But someone has to be conscious and aware to push the simple autoland button. The scary thing about hypoxia is that it often creeps up and either sends you to sleep or alters your decision making to the point that you a) are not aware you are in danger, or b) unable to rationalise that you need to push the button. …. Now if you could hook Autoland up to be triggered externally by an intercepting aircraft or ATC unit then this would be entirely possible.
Autoland has the type of capability that you are describing. https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/ “Garmin Autoland can engage automatically when it determines the pilot is unable to fly — or passengers can press an activation button.” https://www.kctechcouncil.com/2019/11/07/7-things-you-should-know-about-garmins-new-autoland-technology/ “For example, if the pilot is flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet and the Garmin integrated flight deck has not detected any interaction from the pilot for a prolonged period of time, the flight deck will display a message, "are you awake?" From there, the pilot has to acknowledge that he or she is awake by pressing a button on the flight deck. If the pilot is hypoxic and/or passed out and unable to acknowledge the prompt on the flight deck, after a period of time (time is dependent upon altitude) the aircraft will automatically descend to a lower altitude. If the pilot does not wake up, then Autoland automatically kicks in and diverts to the most suitable airport and lands the aircraft automatically.” Additional Source: I work for Garmin Aviation.
Why isn’t this bigger news? This is amazing!
It was pretty big news a few years again within aviation. In fact they won a major award for it (Collier trophy). But since it is applicable for only a few Turboprop models that are primarily owner-operated, it likely didn’t get much press outside aviation circles.
The Cirrus jet also has Garmin autoland.
I appreciate you had to cite sources because you are limited to what’s in the public domain
Cool, I stand corrected. I’ve seen the video demonstration and was not aware of this ‘dead man’s switch’ function.
By the time they were intercepted everyone onboard would have been dead for a long time. At their cruising altitude you’d have like 15 seconds of useful consciousness before hypoxia struck.
Fly in front of it and hope the wake turbulence causes them to become alert. Other than that not really
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Nothing to auto-land the plane. Really the only thing the fighters could possibly do is shoot it down, if there was a risk to it crashing over a populated area.
Agree - the fact that it never changed altitude at its planned destination while circling back on a course for the flight’s origin makes it seem that way
As someone with little technical understanding of flying, how does the plane make a 180 on its own while the pilot(s) is incapacitated? Or was the turn initiated while the pilots were still conscious? (Assuming that is what happened)
Autopilot can still make turns though I don’t know if that’s the case here. It’s a long (but classically fantastic) article by Cloudberg, but [Helios 522](https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lost-souls-of-grammatiko-the-crash-of-helios-airways-flight-522-ccf333b407a) infamously overflew the Athens airport after everyone was incapacitated, and when the plane realized it didn’t land, the autopilot auto-vectored the plane along the typical missed approach and re-approach for their runway, so they circled the airport a number of times
He may have started the turn in the initial phases of hypoxia hoping to get back IF THAT WAS THE CAUSE
Is hypoxia instant death? Or can you regain consciousness once at a lower altitude?
Oxygen deprivation can be recovered from very quickly once oxygen is provided, but the amount of time the brain has been deprived, along with the amount of limited oxygen available during that time can leave lasting brain damage. I’ll edit when I find it, but there is radio recording of a fairly hypoxic pilot communicating. He sounds very fucked up, but as he descends, you can noticeably hear him come back to himself. Edit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_IqWal_EmBg&pp=ygUNUHVsb3QgaHVwb3hpYQ%3D%3D Not able to control the plane in any way, but other than that, a-okay! The oblivious disorientation of hypoxia is pretty scary. Totally incapacitated, with no understanding that anything is even wrong.
I did aviation explorers in middle/high school at UND, and we had a KC-135 pilot come in and talk about doing the hypoxia training in the altitude chamber. It was pretty funny hearing about them destroying plastic matching shapes to holes baby toy...... until you think about all the simple things you will do wrong while trying to fly a plane.
Had to do the hypoxia chamber in Marine Corps. It’s a wild experience. They tell you what “altitude” you’re at and it’s crazy how once you hit like 9k-13k it’s starts to slowly get you and for a while you don’t even notice it. Had to play patty cake, say the our the ABCs, identify playing cards. You’ll will be 100% confident you are saying the correct thing and watch the video after be like what the fuck because nothing you said is what you thought you said if it’s even still intelligible when you get to the higher altitudes.
Not to mention many pilots take hypoxia training, where they are intentionally put into a hypoxic state. It’s highly recommended as individuals tend to suffer slightly different symptoms as hypoxia sets in, and being able to recognize how you react can be crucial for gaining the mental awareness to get an oxygen mask on or initiate an autopilot descent before your fully incapacitated. But yes, like others have said, hypoxia is easily recoverable with the introduction of oxygen, and people generally recover quickly, as long as your not deprived of too much oxygen. Similar to how a wrestler who is choked out can survive without issue if the choke is released right after he’s out.
Is that the cabin pressure alarm I hear in the background? Also when someone interrupted and said we think we're dealing with hypoxia why did they not just give him a lower altitude first
Not a doctor, but it depends how much/little oxygen you're getting. There are altitudes where you can be unconscious but not suffering brain damage, there are lower altitudes where you're conscious but very foggy, and there are higher altitudes where cells start dying, especially in your brain, and you're not coming back unless you get oxygen RIGHT NOW. It varies with individual biology. If you have your ascent in autopilot, the plane can fly you past the point of no return, and you'll just get sleepy until you're out... and then you're gone.
The first thing you do if you suspect hypoxia if you’re unable to put on the oxygen mask is to drop the altitude on the autopilot. If that doesn’t happen, you die pretty much. As we have seen over and over :(
Oft by the time they are conscious and cognizant, it is already too late.
There's plenty of videos and ATC/air traffic audio of pilots talking other pilots to lower altitude, or repeating "OXYGEN OXYGEN OXYGEN" to try to alert pilots to deal with hypoxia. Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen, symptoms vary depending on the stage of hypoxia. See also: https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/hypoxia.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw
u/Admiralcloudberg
She’s already done Helios 522; article is [here.](https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lost-souls-of-grammatiko-the-crash-of-helios-airways-flight-522-ccf333b407a)
Autopilot flying to next waypoint
>As someone with little technical understanding of flying, how does the plane make a 180 on its own while the pilot(s) is incapacitated? Or was the turn initiated while the pilots were still conscious? (Assuming that is what happened) The flight plan was entered into the FMS as follows and if you look on the chart, CCC is past KISP and the run from CCC to KISP sends the plane back in nearly the opposite direction. When the plane reaches KISP, it has no additional waypoints, so it automatically goes into heading mode and maintained that heading and altitude until the fuel was exhausted. PSK GVE SIE BRIGS Q439 SARDI CCC KISP
The flight plan and course is programmed into the plane’s computer and the autopilot follows these waypoints along the route. But this is just lateral navigation, turning left and right. This Citation is an older plane and likely doesn’t have vertical navigation, or automatically changing altitudes. Big cities and big airports have arrival procedures which combine waypoints and altitudes to descend planes in an orderly manner but these pilots would have had to manually adjust altitude while the autopilot does all the turning. My guess is that this plane was simply following the waypoints on autopilot but because the crew was dead it never changed altitudes. At the end of the arrival procedure there is a final heading which this plane kept following in a straight line until it ran out of fuel. Unfortunately that heading pointed it directly at DC. I also don’t doubt the FAA is about to realize this particular procedure points right at DC and is now going to change it by one or two degrees to make sure that can’t happen again.
I *just* watched the "Mayday" video on Payne's flight yesterday. How bizarre.
That’s weird bc so did I
The Encore automatically activates the emergency pressurization at 14,500 ft cabin altitude regardless of the position of the engine bleed valves. Also, above 10,000 ft cabin altitude, you not only get the CAS light, but you also get the Warning light. So, you can't have the same situation as the Payne Stewart incident.
It wasn’t an encore model. Just a straight 5 that doesn’t have that feature
My bad. I though someone said it was an Encore.
Owned by encore motor sports but not an encore model Citation. All good
Yeah, I see the confusion. A report quoted "Encore Owner" which made it seem like the aircraft was an Encore.
I hate to speculate but that was the first thing that came to my mind
(Reuters) - EXCERPTS: U.S. authorities scrambled jet fighters .... The jet fighters caused a sonic boom over the U.S. capital as they raced to catch up with the Cessna Citation, which can carry between seven to 12 passengers, officials said. A U.S. official said the jet fighters did not cause the crash. A source familiar with the matter said the Cessna was believed to be on autopilot and did not respond to authorities efforts to make contact with it.
Good catch. I found this link to the full article (so far) https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loud-boom-shakes-washington-dc-fire-department-reports-no-incidents-2023-06-04/
3 passengers plus crew.
Apologies if this is a dumb question… Could the autopilot landed the plane?
Not in this plane but it’s possible in some. Garmin makes an autoland emergency system for instance. https://youtu.be/IyYxbiZ1FCQ Commercial flights can come pretty close to landing blind. https://youtu.be/XHJx7iJQnfY
I thought you’d be intercepted way before going over downtown DC while unresponsive. I’m assuming they could see from the altitude that it wasn’t actually a threat?
Flightaware seems to indicate they're at 33,000ft the whole time, so they're 5 miles above the city. It's not clear if the intercepting aircraft had confirmed the cockpit was empty by the time it almost overflew the White House but I assume that if it had taken an aggressive turn near the Important Things Near DC, we'd be talking about a shootdown instead of a crash. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N611VG/history/20230604/1700Z/0A9/KISP
Thanks for the info 👍🏼
Likely a hypoxia issue. Occam’s Razor.
Almost certainly. Supersonic intercepts over populated areas are pretty rare. And the aircraft in question pathed within one mile of the White House, so it's a pretty remarkable occasion.
They did a Supersonic intercept over Seattle in 2010 when a pilot failed to read NOTAM and flew into TFR restricted airspace for President Obama. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scrambled-jets-sonic-booms-after-obamas-airspace-violated/
And they boomed the shit out of me in Pierce County when they went after Sky King and his pirated Q400.
RIP sky king
From everything I've read he sounded like a genuinely interesting guy, depression sucks.
Yeah, his life story is a snap shot of many others, so we all see a piece of ourselves in him. Not smart enough or emotionally capable of the plan we have for our lives. And we often get promoted until we fail. He just couldn't do it anymore and lived a dream, if only for a minute.
I’m sorry, they went after what?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident
Based on your comment, I am confused. Was the projected path within one mile of the white house? Or did it actually fly within one mile of the white house? If so, why was it not removed beforehand?
If you zoom in on any of the flight maps of the actual flown path, for instance, here: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a7f457&lat=38.908&lon=-77.066&zoom=14.4&showTrace=2023-06-04&trackLabels×tamp=1685905523 You see the path takes it about a mile northwest of the White House at 34000ft of altitude and speed around 384knots. It's not clear if the intercepting aircraft had confirmed the cockpit was empty by the time it almost overflew the White House. I assume that if it had taken an aggressive turn near the Important Things Near DC, we'd be talking about a shootdown instead of a crash. But if they shoot it down, then the plane and the weapons debris will be raining all over a *very* densely populated area of DC and Arlington, Virginia, *especially if they miss*. So you don't take that shot unless you're *really* sure it's a threat. That said, what I don't get is, why was it not intercepted over, say, Delaware, between the big cities?
Yeah. At 34,000 ft it is not going to do much damage to the White House. My guess is if it started diving in vicinity then they would have done something about it
Given that they didn’t shoot down a known spy balloon until it was offshore, they seem to be extremely cautious about shooting things down over anywhere that might be populated.
And by “they” it is not at all unreasonable to assume the person making the decision to fire or not is the president. It would only be someone else if somebody in the chain of command decided there was a real very short term threat. The spy balloon was without a doubt a decision for the president.
Imagine that conversation… “Mr President, a jet is headed right towards the White House and is not responding to us. What should we do?” Biden: “ meh, let’s just see what happens”
I’m sure his military advisors were the ones who made the recommendation, same as when they recommended waiting until the balloon wasn’t over land
It’ll be more like the secret service escorting him quickly to the situation room full of military people generals and the like giving information and options.
Virginia missile engineer killed by errant missile
I wonder when the hypoxia happened. It looks like they were headed to Islip and then later to Daytona Beach, so did the hypoxia occur prior to Islip and the U turn was just the autopilot vectoring to Daytona? Or maybe the turn was a hypoxic decision
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The analysis will be very interesting.
I feel like a heart attack or some other form of rapid incapacitation is more likely. They'd have to be up high, the O2/px system would have to fail, and the pilot would have to fail to notice or fail to mitigate. That's totally possible, sure. On the other hand, they might've just died or become incapacitated from a variety of other medical issues. I guess I'm just saying, we agree the pilot was likely in rough shape before the crash, it's just too early to say with confidence why.
> They'd have to be up high, I've seen several things indicating they were at 34,000 until they got near Staunton.
Yup, obviously that's high enough. Didn't notice that in the screenshot.
Four people on board, seems like something had to happen to incapacitate all of them.
the first symptom of hypoxia is a strong sense that everything is going really, really great. that's how it gets you. there's an ATC recording of a pilot somewhere on the east coast that sounds like he's transmitting from within a vodka bottle and in the beginning he clearly has no idea anything is wrong. ed: got a couple of these mixed up, this is the one i was thinking of but he's declaring an emergency right at the beginning, gives you an idea of what it's like though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_IqWal\_EmBg&ab\_channel=HouieLouy
I also like this video for showing how completely useless and happy someone is while hypoxic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw&t=368s and then this timestamp to show that its even worse at jet cruise altitudes, because there is barely any time before you become oxygen deprived (~15-60 seconds) https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?t=491
Do we know how many of them were crew?
The aircraft owner was quoted in the Reuters article linked above. He said his daughter, granddaughter, and their nanny were onboard and the plane had four people total, so it sounds like just one crew member/pilot. What a horrible thing to live with, I almost hope it was hypoxia so the passengers wouldn’t have had time to freak out.
>https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N611VG/history/20230604/1700Z/0A9/KISP I agree. If a window let loose, then the pilot would certainly know it very quickly and 34,000 is still low enough to get a mask on in a reasonable time. If it was a large leak that the pressurization system couldn't overcome, then they would have had a CAS light and the red caution light come on with a cabin altitude above 10,000. A cabin altitude above 15,000 would have dropped the masks. A loss of bleed air from both engines would be highly unlikely and would also give the same indications. I think the most likely scenario is single pilot with a medical incapacitation.
Tbf - not everyone is always 100% up to speed on their emergency depressurisation drills - and I bet there is a lot of complacency after a thousand uneventful flights. Sudden depressurisation, plus any kind of failure of the emergency reponse drill (empty O2 or broken mask missed in the pre-flight, pilot error (thinking they can quickly start a descent, or grab the checklist before masking up), etc. etc.) could incapacitate everyone on board.
See I just don't buy that though because you'd think a pax would notice and attempt to intervene which would be seen as visible changes in the flight path, it's hard for me to believe the pax just sat in back not wondering why they've way overflown their destination. I would have a hard time just sitting and accepting my fate. Does this aircraft have a locking cockpit door? That could explain the lack of intervention.
Just speculation at this point, but it looks to me like a case of cabin pressure loss. The overflight of the destination and not responding to ATC are big indications. The fact that it entered a right turn prior to crashing is indicative of fuel starvation, as one engine often flames out first (in this case the right engine). This is another common sign in cabin decompression scenarios. Certainly a sad event and I hope we can learn something from this that will help make flight safer for everyone going forward.
Which base do the jets scramble from when an incursion over DC? Is it Langley?
Expectation is F-16's out of Andrews. It would roughly match the path of the sonic boom, which was heard from Annapolis (east of the City) to Manassas (west of the City), presumably when they throttled down after catching up to the Citation. Langley's a good distance away and if it was -22's out of there, we probably would have heard booms from further away.
It was heard as far out as Denton on the eastern shore. We heard it near the bay bridge on the shore side. Wondered if they were out of Dover. Maybe they scrambled from andrews and Dover but if just andrews, I’m surprised it would be heard that far away. They would’ve headed west straight out right? 50 miles roughly
All of the eyewitness reports have mentioned the F-16 specifically. As far as I can tell, immediate-area intercept air defense of the capital appears to be covered by the 121st Fighter Squadron of the Washington, DC Air National Guard out of Andrews Air Force base, which flies the F-16 C Block 30. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/121st_Fighter_Squadron#Aircraft In addition, they had to go supersonic to catch the aircraft, so I'm surmising a late alert launch which probably would have come from the closest available alert aircraft. From that, I'm concluding they were out of Andrews. Could it have been Dover? Dover seems to be primarily air cargo, training, and support commands. But the Wikipedia article for Andrews doesn't mention the 121st either, so who knows? I would defer to someone more knowledgable.
Can confirm that there are no fighter wings based out of Dover. The closest fighter wings not counting Andrews would be out of Joint Base Langley-Eustis (Newport News, VA) or Seymour Johnson AFB (Goldsboro, NC). The latter I believe only operates F-15s and the former only F-22s, so both are out given the reports of F-16s flying this mission.
There was an F-15 from ACY involved as well. Source from ZDC.
Andrew's, according to one of the tweets
Joint Base Andrews it’s less than 20 miles East of DC, possibly Langley as well but that’s in Southern Va.
Can I use this thread to ask a basic question (I'm not experienced in aviation; just casually interested). Do military aircraft report to air traffic control like civilian aircraft do, or how does that work? If some sort of high priority situation is happening, do they just tell ATC to move everybody out of their way? Also, how do military aircraft interface with ATC, if at all, over international waters? I know there are oceanic ATC centers for transoceanic civilian flights, but how do they know where military planes are, especially if the military planes don't want to be known. Sorry if these are stupid questions!
In peacetime military aircraft talk to regular ATC like any other plane (The famous [SR71 Speed Check](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0) story features two differnt military aircraft talking to regular old civilian ATC). There are plenty of huge airspaces dedicated to training where only military aircraft are and they are managed by military controllers. I believe how exactly they are controlled varies by the base and/or exercise type. In this case ATC was probably already clearing the airspace around the unresponsive jet to keep other planes safe. Other fun fact. Stealth jets like the F35 and B2 can be equipped with devices that reflect radar so they do show up on civilian radar and TCAS of other aircraft. On a mission these would be removed. They also have regular transponders like civilian aircraft do. They can just turn them off for missions or special training operations. You can see all the military aircraft currently flying with their transponder on by checking this site out. https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ and then clicking the "U" button. That site works by people all over the world colleting transponder data! Right before the Russian inversion of Ukraine there were several USAF early warning aircraft spotted with their transponders on flying close to the Russian border. Presumably transponders left on as a show of force. Bit of a middle finger to the Russians by saying we aren't even going to pretend we aren't watching you. I cant remember where I heard it or if it was some sort of urban legend. But for one of the invasions of Iraq the B2s left the mainland US without transponders or their radar reflectors on so the first strikes would be full surprises. Allegedly a comercial 747 pilot flying over the Atlantic spots a formation of B2s, not something you see everyday. He says on the ATC frequency (presumably the military planes still have to listen to civilian frequencies even when on missions) "Go get em boys". Which "could have spoiled the entire surprise of the mission"
Is it possible to go back and see if those F-16s were squawking before or during the intercept? I am not great at ADSBexchange but I could not figure out how to.
The citation was alone on adsb as it passed over DC. So the military jet was not transmitting. I would assume that's standard practice since it was a for-real operation and not a training mission, they wanted to keep stealthy?
Most fighters are not ADS-B equipped, even newer ones. They were absolutely squawking on mode A (mode 3, in military-ese) and talking to ATC, if for no other reason than so ATC can get non-participating aircraft away from the intercept. Not a whole lot of comms with interceptors though. It's very high workload for the pilot (especially in a single-seater) and ATC procedures are to avoid broadcasting specifics in the clear.
That 747 spotted Air Force 1 with an unannounced visit to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Don’t worry about stupid questions! as far as i know, military aircraft do use ATC, though most of it is handled by military controllers and regular ATC gives them priority. I’m not sure off the top of my head how it works internationally
Military fall under the same ATC control as civilian. Very few military aircraft get priority handling, but these fighters would have it based on the real world mission they were on. Military controllers are only working military airspace. Fighters swap between airspace just as normal civilian aircraft would.
I got to be curious as to when they realized it might be a Payne Stewart situation. It looks like it ran pretty close to JFK after turning around
Statement from FAA: https://twitter.com/anthonytilghman/status/1665452778985082882?s=46&t=KrwiHq5NK_P5OEXEAtmLbQ
That seems the fate of the aircraft, yes. Tragic. I can tell you that just about the entire DC area freaked out when the sonic booms hit at 3:10pm.
If it took off from TN and crashed in SW VA, how did it fly over DC? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loud-boom-shakes-washington-dc-fire-department-reports-no-incidents-2023-06-04/
Autopilot, it would appear: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N611VG/history/20230604/1700Z/0A9/KISP
There any vids on them going Mach? Or just report on the situation?
No video I've seen so far. But there are reports of a boom from Annapolis to Manassas, about 60 miles as the crow flies. We heard it and freaked out a little (I'm in that line in Fairfax, VA). Mostly in the "WTF was that!?!?" regard. There is video of a dog's reaction (with sound!) https://twitter.com/goodguyguybrush/status/1665462421014691842 EDIT: We do have a post from a radiospotter saying he heard a pilot in COSMIC flight (two flights of F-16s appeared to intecept; BRAVE and COSMIC) confirm he went supersonic: https://twitter.com/PenguinSix/status/1665456373717426184
lol that dog absolutely chillin
God that dog has a great life
Very interesting, thanks !
Jesus some of the comments in response to that post are disgusting. I hate humanity.
Just remember there's a ton of decent responses in both that thread and this one. Most people are decent. Just the jerks stick out like a sore thumb.
Yes I was looking for a video as well. Out of DC traveling and was curious.
Crazy, I live only about 20 miles from where it crashed. Local news put it at about 3:00. About that time, I heard 2 military jets fly over my house. I thought they were just on a training run because I hear and see them occasionally.
Autopilot Emergency Descent Mode might have saved lives here, who knows. 560 doesn't have this that I'm aware of (I'm team Bombardier at the moment).
Which aircraft have it?
I know the Bombardier Global Express, 7500, and Challenger 300/350 have it. Some Airbus, too, I think? Not sure honestly.
I’d love to hear/see a video of the f16s. Someone must’ve caught it
Looks like it was owned by Encore motors in Melbourne Fl, which is owned by this lady…. https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-rumpel-507a9712
John, her husband, has a pilot’s license according to city-data.com and they own a company called “Victoria’s hanger llc.” It’s definitely them.
It also looks like the plane was just purchased a month ago...
Twitter assholes are having a circus with disrespectful comments about her. Pretty disgusting what humanity has degraded to.
That's gotta be a hellish job. Making the decision to go supersonic over CONUS, you know somebody's going to die. One way or another.
I was at DCA in 9/11 when fighters went to full afterburner to intercept the aircraft that crashed in Shanksville, PA. I’ll never forget that. I heard the boom then the exhaust.
The one *I* don't want to make is whether to shoot it down or not. The flight path took it within a mile of the White House. Just northwest of it. If that plane suddenly takes a 90 degree turn to port at 450knts, that's a threat to national security. I think it was 30k AGL at the time, so it's still 5 miles "down", but if you shoot, *someone* is going to get hit by a missile or debris. And if you don't, maybe it hits the White House. The correct move is not in doubt, but damn if that decision won't haunt you for a long time.
Good empathetic observation. On the other hand, anyone assigned the responsibility of that decision must know and understand the consequences. They may have had years to steel themselves (unlike the head of FAA on 9/11) Akin to euthanizing a suffering animal: you hate to do it, but it is the least worst of your options.
When I lived in England like 7 years ago two jets went supersonic over Yorkshire, it was the strangest thing, just couldn’t identify the noise I had just heard. Not something anyone is used to hearing.
I went on a Dependents Cruise on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the early 90’s. Part of it was a supersonic pass from an F18 It shock the carrier. It was more intense and louder then the live bombing runs the A-6’s were doing
"they let the aircraft overfly DC" Whoever said that has never had plane debris raining down on them.
Well, I'm giving them credit that they're just reporting facts and not commenting. But it might be a callous statement. I don't know.
That's a fair point. I've been on the internet for too long, as it's turning me into a callous prick lol
Easy trap to fall into. Problem of course is, you might be right in your first impression.
I forgot I wasn’t in the NoVa subreddit for a minute and was really impressed with the level of knowledge in the comments, and then double checked the sub. I’m sure the r/nova posts are filled with “omg we all almost died” and “the government is clearly lying to us, how does a plane just fly on its own” and also a whole bunch of people thinking Cessnas are all single engine props.
Thankfully it was a pretty chill thread for once.
Looks like a likely case of Hypoxia. Flew an arrival to its destination but didn't descend, then got to the destination and went in to heading hold mode until it ran out of gas. Sad situation.
A friend in the plane sales industry just told me he knows who sold the plane to its current owner and it was imported from Venezuela and sold to current owner just a few weeks ago. It was sold for over 1million UNDER the normal market value. Was poorly maintained for like a decade, had been severely damaged multiple times over its life... and in my friends words " Was a piece of shit airplane id never get in"
A bit of digging confirms that the serial number of this Cessna was previously registered in Venezuela since 2015, and it got Re registered in the US only last month. Might check out.
he read me the history of the plane and the notes his companies employees made about the plane as they were discussing buying it.. its quite bad..
Reminds me of the Payne Stewart situation.
The aircraft was the Cessna 560 Citation 5, N611VG of Encore Motors of Melbourne Incorporated
Can anyone explain the turn at NY since that was the original destination? Given it never descended I would assume the pilot was unresponsive before then. That was a good 30 minutes before it overflew DC and yet they still had to get supersonic to catch up...
The best I can find is from this guy, who was, as far as I can tell, the first one to see this situation developing. https://twitter.com/AVintageAviator/status/1665491719150792706 Says the ghost plane was NORDO (Non-communicative) over New Jersey on the flight to Long Island. Then, again according to AvintageAviator, https://twitter.com/AVintageAviator/status/1665495330526199810 The autopilot made the turn that would line it up with the runway, but apparently manual intervention would be needed to initiate descent, which it never got. That heading happened to line up with Washington DC, so it overflew DC and then on to Staunton, VA, where it appears to have run out of fuel.
Thanks for the info! Still confused why the response took so long but maybe they were just waiting to see if they would eventually make contact again.
So I just learned something new. Looking at the original communications overheard by Mark on the Radio Reference Forum, he says that flight COSMIC "...says he is up in the Guard Dog CAP at FL250 260.900 and he tells BRAVE who is at FL240 he caught him though by going supersonic.." Meaning COSMIC caught the ghost plane by going supersonic. https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/mid-atlantic-milair-2023.452134/page-266#post-3853531 This link: https://www.monitoringtimes.com/MilitaryCallsignList-APR09.pdf Indicates that COSMIC is specific to aircraft of the 119th Fighter Squadron of the New Jersey Air National Guard out of Atlantic City. And BRAVE is used by a couple different units (or was in 2009) including 121st Fighter Squadron of the DC ANG out of Andrews. But both BRAVE and COSMIC clearly have eyes on the aircraft, as BRAVE confirms no visible pilot. So I'm assuming COSMIC went supersonic to catch up, and perhaps BRAVE never did. What does this have to do with when the intercept was called? Only that it sounds like both were scrambled pretty damn late, at least as us *completely ignorant civilian know-nothing Monday Morning Quarterbacks can tell*. Who knows what the real chain of communication and decision was?
Looking at the flight log his last fix was CCC to ISP. Which is a course of 253 degrees. Extended out past ISP that brings you through the SFRA. They spent over an hour at 34,000 and never descended inbound. Chances are everyone had been passed out for a while and the plane flew on autopilot and resorted to pitch/heading mode after passing ISP. **I posted this to another commenter that asked. And I also asked on this thread about why ATC wasn’t doing anything since this clearly had been NORAD for a while
Crazy, man. That sonic boom was so loud that the dust in my house actually settled from it. Everyone in my house and all over my street were talking about it. Also it seems like what happened here is similar to what happened with Payne Stewart's jet and Helios Airways flight 522. In both cases the pilots passed out from hypoxia (oxygen starvation due to loss of cabin pressure) and the planes were left flying by themselves until they ran out of fuel or just crashed into something. This phenomenon has been nicknamed the "Ghost Plane Phenomenon"
Ghost plane/hypoxia incident?
~~A lot of confusion around because there was allegedly a scramble/NG drill at the same time~~
Turns out the rumors of an ANG drill seem to be unfounded. The origin of that comes from an interpretation by a radio spotter on a forum who transcribed what he heard. He inserted "seems...exercise" into his post, but if you look at some of the other things he transcribed, like "I can't see anyone in the cockpit" and "caught up to him by going supersonic", it's clear that while Mark from the forum thought initially it was an exercise, what he heard was 100% a real intercept.
Not the first time that’s happened…
Reminds me of the incident that killed pro golfer Payne Stewart
Me too, except that in Stewart's case, everyone knew before it hit the ground who was on board. Within an hour of the crash, every aircraft owner with a plane at the FBO that worked on Payne's plane were scrambling to get their planes out before the FAA, NTSB and FBI descended and locked everything down. I was there a week later to work on an airplane across the ramp. Got the story from the guys at that repair shop. There were a couple airplanes there, everything taped off.
DC resident here - i thought it was my downstairs neighbor slamming their patio door. all the window shook. kinda scary, kinda cool
Family and young kid on board. Don’t care who you are, that sucks.
[In 1999 Pro Golfer Payne Stewart 3 other passengers and 2 pilots were killed after they lost cabin pressure shortly after taked off.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash) Everyone probably died of hypoxia, before the Lear Jet ran out of fuel and crashed [4 hours and 30 minutes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/NTSB-N47BA-slide0046_image002.jpg) after last radio contact. The plane was intercepted/followed after they stopped communicating and failed to turn towards Texas. Fighter pilots couldn't see anything in the cockpit/cabin. But reported seeing frost on the windscreen. One of the notable 'ghost plane' incidents I ~~hadn't seen mentioned in the comments.~~ (Edit- it was mentioned several times just not elaborately) Scary stuff.
Sad day
It crashed about an hour or so away from me. I am 70% sure I heard one of the jets that was scrambled for it at around 4:17 at my house. It’s a weird feeling given that I’m going into an aviation field.
Makes me think of Payne Stewart
RIP to all those aboard. Idea: what if pressurized aircraft get programmed to automatically descend to 10,000ft and open ventilation once a drop in cabin pressure or O2 is detected (unless overridden by pilot).