Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board are inspecting the “highly fragmented” wreckage left behind by the crashed private jet whose flight over the nation’s capital was intercepted by fighter jets breaking the sound barrier.
Summary
Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board are inspecting the “highly fragmented” wreckage left behind by the crashed private jet whose flight over the nation’s capital was intercepted by fighter jets breaking the sound barrier.
- The small Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee with one pilot and three passengers bound for MacArthur Airport on Long Island.
- During the flight, the plane reversed course and headed south, flying in restricted airspace directly over Washington, DC before crashing in Virginia, killing all aboard.
- The pilot of one of the six military jets deployed to intercept the Cessna observed the pilot who flew what some outlets have dubbed the “ghost plane” slumped over in his seat, unconscious.
- The military jets were given permission to break the sound barrier to catch up with the Cessna Citation flying through restricted airspace. The sonic boom created by the jets could be heard across the Washington metropolitan area.
- The leading theory for the “ghost plane’s” strange journey is a loss of oxygen in the cabin. A plane that experiences rapid decompression can induce hypoxia, a condition caused by lack of oxygen that causes loss of consciousness and eventually death.
- The Federal Aviation Administration notified John Rumpel that it was his plane that crashed in a wooded area of Virginia, the Washington Post reported. The FAA told Rumpel that police had found body parts among the wreckage and that all four passengers, including his daughter, granddaughter, her nanny, and the pilot, were dead.
- Rumpel’s daughter has been identified as Adina Azarian, a New York real estate agent, and her 2-year-old daughter, Aria. Azarian was the adopted daughter of John and Barbara Rumpel and struggled for years to have a child before Aria’s birth in 2020.
- NBC News specified the crash site as in a “densely wooded, remote, mountainous area of Augusta County, near the Nelson County line,” more than a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway…It could be days before National Transportation Safety Board investigators corral the highly fragmented debris field, the agency said.”
- Four first responders described the crash site to CNN. “There were perhaps four recognizable pieces of wreckage from the plane, which they believe impacted the ground at a very steep angle, they said. “There was nothing really bigger than your arm,” said one. They also found signs of human remains.”
- The Washington Post editorial board attempted to look for the bright side of the sonic boom over Washington, DC. The boom is “evidence of the military’s 24/7 readiness to defend against the kind of attack from the sky that hit the Pentagon and World Trade Center two decades ago. This is especially welcome after the Chinese spy balloon debacle earlier this year highlighted vulnerabilities and gaps in the air defense system with regard to high-altitude surveillance.”
- Barbara Rumpel, the mother and grandmother of two of the victims, reacted in a Sunday night Facebook post according to Fox News. “My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter,” she wrote. Her husband, John Rumpel, confirmed to the New York Times that his daughter, granddaughter, their nanny and the pilot were the victims.
- Breitbart reported rescuers had reached the site of the plane crash on Monday. The aircraft crashed in a rural, mountainous part of the Shenandoah Valley near Montebello, Virginia.
- The New York Post highlighted the parallels between the Virginia crash and the Oct. 25, 1999, plane crash that killed PGA golfer Payne Stewart and five others. The Learjet 35A lost cabin pressure and flew aimlessly across the continental US before crashing in South Dakota.
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
