A sonic boom, an aerial chase, and a plane crash shake D.C.

WASHINGTON —  On Sunday, Washingtonians heard a very loud boom.

Loud sounds — military plane engines, fireworks, gunshots —are common throughout the district. But a boom this loud was so extraordinary, people went t o the internet to find out what was going on. The Washington Post’s weather Twitter account even noted that its team had heard the sound, and that thunder was not the culprit.

What was the sound? A “sonic boom” from the U.S. military’s response to a plane that drifted into unrestricted airspace. That plane crashed and four people died.

My name is Erin B. Logan. I cover national politics for the L.A. Times. Today, my colleague Owen Tucker-Smith and I are going to tell you about sonic booms and aviation security after 9/11.

What was the sound?

A Cessna Citation entered restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., around 3:05 p.m. on Sunday. The plane was on its way to Long Island from Elizabethton, Tenn. Officials tried to radio to the crew and tell them to move back to unrestricted air space.

But the pilot was not responding to traffic instructions minutes into the journey, the Associated Press reported Tuesday afternoon. Officials sent six fighter jets from three Air Force bases to intercept the plane. Two F-16s from the Washington-area Joint Andrews Base had to fly extraordinarily fast to catch up to the private plane. The jets had to “turn on the speed,” to catch up with the aircraft, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a Monday news conference.

“They had to break the sound barrier to get to the aircraft in question,” Kirby told reporters. (The speed of sound is around 761 mph.) “That’s where the loud boom came from.”

After the fighter jets tried to use flares to get the pilot’s attention, it crashed in rural Virginia. The plane was not shot down, the Washington Post reported. Four people — the pilot and three passengers — were found dead on scene. Their names have not yet been released. Aviation officials said they would investigate the crash. The Associated Press reported that the pilot seemed to be unresponsive and slumped over before the crash — and that aviation experts suspect the pilot could have suffered from oxygen deprivation.

The response

Since Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes and rammed them into the Pentagon in Virginia and the World Trade Center in New York City, aviation security in the nation’s capital has been extremely strict, Kirby noted. The incident even prompted the U.S. Capitol to go on alert.

Kirby declined to say what security measures the White House took during the incident.

(Reporters spotted President Biden at a golf course at Joint Base Andrews earlier that afternoon. By 3:39 p.m. Eastern, his motorcade was headed back to the White House.)

Kirby told reporters that scrambling fighter jets almost always works to get private jets out of no-fly space.

“Having observed this myself for many years, what I saw was a classic textbook response...to an unresponsive pilot,” Kirby said.

The latest from the campaign trail

— YouTube will stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election or other past U.S. presidential elections were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches,” the platform has announced, the Associated Press reported. YouTube said that the updated policy was an attempt to protect the ability to “openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions.”

— Former Vice President Mike Pence filed paperwork on Monday declaring his campaign for president in 2024, setting up a challenge to his former boss, Donald Trump, just two years after their time in the White House ended with an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Pence fleeing for his life, the Associated Press reported.

The view from Washington

— The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether Trump can be mocked as “too small” on a trademarked T-shirt, Times writer David G. Savage reported. Usually, the trademark law does not allow for using someone’s name over his objection. But in this instance, a federal appeals court said it is a free speech right to mock Trump as “too small” on T-shirts and hats.

— With just two days to spare, President Biden signed legislation Saturday that lifts the nation’s debt ceiling, averting an unprecedented default on the federal government’s debt, the Associated Press reported.

— After years of being scorned in Washington, the rebirth of congressional earmarks could help address a common conundrum confronting the Gower Street Apartments and other affordable housing developments: Lenders and governments make lots of money available to construct new housing but not to refurbish residences that already exist, Times writer Benjamin Oreskes reported.

The view from California

— Gov. Gavin Newsom took his feud with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to new heights on Monday, seemingly threatening him with kidnapping charges after California officials say South American migrants were sent to Sacramento by Florida as a political stunt, Times writers Mackenzie Mays and Melanie Mason reported.

—Proposed legislation that would exempt those who wear religious or cultural headdresses — such as a turban or patka — from wearing helmets when riding a motorcycle has cleared the California state Senate, Times writer Vanessa Arredondo reported.

— For outsiders to L.A.’s extravagant real estate scene, the numbers didn’t quite add up, Times writer Jack Flemming reported. But for insiders — those familiar with the fortunes amassed in this otherworldly housing market and the lengths people go to protect those fortunes — there was a clear answer: “the wealth defense industry.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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