The pilot of the unresponsive plane that sparked a military response after it flew into unauthorized airspace over the nation’s capital was seen slumped over by a fighter jet pilot, the Washington Post reports.
A pilot of one of the F-16 jets sent to intercept the private aircraft described the pilot, identified as Jeff Hefner of East Hampton, N.Y., as in the left seat, slumped to the right.
The plane, which took off from Elizabethton, Tenn., on Sunday, was headed for Long Island but turned and flew toward Washington. The military jets and air traffic controllers made temporary contact with the Cessna Citation aircraft before it crashed about 160 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. in rural Virginia around 3:30 p.m.
It’s not clear what caused the accident, which resulted in the death of all on board, but experts suspect it could have been a result of the plane losing pressure, according to the Post.
John Kirby, a White House spokesperson on national security issues, said the military response was standard practice when a private aircraft enters restricted airspace.
“Having observed this myself for many years, what I saw was just a classic textbook response to, in this case, what was an unresponsive pilot and aircraft, again, with a completely tragic outcome,” Kirby said during a White House press briefing Monday.
Many D.C. residents were alerted to the situation when they heard a sonic boom caused by the dispatched fighter jets racing to catch up with the Cessna.
“They had to turn on the speed to get to them, which is why people here in the District area heard a sonic boom,” Kirby said. “They had to break the sound barrier to get up to speed to get to the aircraft in question.”