MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Business jet crashes after crossing through Washington DC's no-fly zone

F-16 fighter jets were deployed but the Cessna's pilot was “unresponsive”

A small plane, identified as a Cessna 560 Citation V business jet, crashed in a sparsely populated area in the US State of Virginia Sunday after the pilot was unresponsive to warnings from Air Force fighters dispatched to escort the aircraft as it was entering Washinton DC's no-fly zone.

The plane was bound for MacArthur Airport on Long Island in New York State. It had departed from the city of Elizabethton, in the southern state of Tennessee. There were four people on board. The Cessna was registered to Florida-based company Encore Motors. Encore owner John Rumpel told the Washington Post that his “entire family” was on board, including his daughter, a grandchild, and her nanny. Virginia State Police later announced that no survivors had been found at the crash site. They were flying home to East Hampton, N.Y., following a four-day trip to Rumple's residence in North Carolina, when the plane crashed.

“It descended at 20,000 feet a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed,” Rumpel said. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was investigating the causes of the accident.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said F-16 fighter jets took off to intercept the aircraft that had violated the no-fly zone set up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The warplanes were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and produced a loud sonic boom that was heard by the city’s residents.

According to NORAD, the F-16s used flares to draw the attention of the rogue plane, but its pilot remained “unresponsive.” The Cessna eventually crashed near the George Washington National Forest near the unincorporated community of Montebello, Va., about 120 miles northwest of Richmond, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed on Twitter. “NORAD attempted to establish contact with the pilot until the aircraft crashed,” it said.

US Capital Police said in a statement that the Capitol Complex had been briefly placed under “an elevated alert” as the unresponsive plane traveled in its vicinity.