Air traffic control caught the audio of military planes trying to talk to a Cessna pilot.
When U.S. fighter pilots stopped a Cessna plane flying over restricted airspace in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, they found the pilot “slumped over.” Fox News has learned that the business jet then crashed in a remote hilly area in Virginia, killing all four people on board.
Military officials said that F-16 pilots from the National Guard confirmed that the civilian pilot was unconscious after trying for 30 minutes to get the pilot’s attention before the plane crashed around 3 p.m. near the small town of Montebello, Virginia.
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said, “The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the pilot did not respond to air traffic control instructions at 1:28 p.m. EDT.” “After that, the NORAD pilots looked at the Cessna while still in the air and saw that the pilot was not moving. The Cessna pilot slumped over, according to NORAD pilots.
The Associated Press, citing records on LiveATC.net, said that a half-hour before the Cessna Citation crashed, people who described themselves as military pilots trying to talk to the private plane pilot were heard on air traffic control audio.
Related Posts
“If you hear this transmission, contact us,” a pilot from the Air National Guard said. When a military fighter said, “You have been intercepted,” no one answered for a few minutes. “Write to me.”
Officials say the U.S. sent six F-16 jets, two from Washington, D.C., two from New Jersey, and two more from South Carolina, to meet the Cessna plane. One of the D.C. National Guard F-16 jets trying to catch up with the Cessna caused a supersonic boom that could be heard all over the Washington, D.C., area. Authorities haven’t confirmed who was on the plane or what caused it to crash, but the plane’s owner, John Rumpel, told The New York Times and Newsday that his daughter Adina Azarian and his 2-year-old niece Aria were on board.
Azarian, who was 49, was well-known in New York City and Long Island real estate circles. Her friends and family described her as a tough entrepreneur who had started her firm and was raising her daughter as a single parent.
Rumpel, a pilot who runs the Florida-based company Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc., to which the crashed plane was allegedly registered, said that his family was returning home in East Hampton, Long Island, after visiting his house in North Carolina.
Adam Gerhardt, who works for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the wreckage is “highly fragmented.” He said the plane doesn’t have to have a flight recorder, but it might have other technical equipment with data they can look at.
Investigators are now trying to find out how long the pilot might have been unconscious and why the plane turned around over Long Island and headed back toward Tennessee.
Experts think that the plane might have lost pressure, which could have led to hypoxia, a condition that happens when the brain doesn’t get enough air.
