Private jet crashes after being intercepted after flying over the Capitol

From what I read yesterday, the pilot was unresponsive and eventually crashed on it's own. There were 4 people on the flight. Makes me wonder if something happened where they all passed out or something...

 

Possible decompression of the jet? This could be another Payne Stewart type event, just had the misfortune of flying over the US capital??

 

Yeah. A lit of online reports yesterday of the boom on the east coast. Makes sense now.

 

the thing that doesn't make sense is that the plane turned around and headed back south. If they knew they had a problem, ti would seem that they would have went to oxygen, declared a state of emergency or something. the u-turn is highly suspicious to me.

 

Yeah, just saw that reported. It was supposed to land in Long Island, but instead, made a U-turn over Long Island and headed back near the path it came from. But it does look like it continued on a straight path after that, which could be a sign of an incapacitated pilot after the turn, I guess ... Also a pretty good chance it ran out of gas since it flew about 175% of its original course.

 

I saw the jets scramble but didnt hear the sonic boom since I had my car radio on and the windows up

 

I was thinking the same thing, but maybe whatever happened just coincidentally occurred right after the U-turn, and it depressurized and coasted after that. That’s a long way to fly back if it was a plane related emergency, maybe it was some other unrelated reason for the U-turn itself (or the u-turn was simultaneous with a depressurization and auto-pilot coasted them in a straight line). I assume the jets were scrambled only on the return trip when it flew over D.C.

I guess whether there is any reason to be suspicious depends on the identity of pilot and passengers, the purpose of the trip, etc.

 

CT peeps will have fun with this one.

 

Already mentioned but there is remarkable similarity to the crash that killed Payne Stewart.
Fatal Virginia 'ghost plane' crash echoes death of PGA golfer Payne Stewart
I also found this article involving a similar crash of a Cessna Citation in which the pilot was able to advise ATC regarding a problem with pressurization before he apparently lost consciousness.
2022 Baltic Sea Cessna Citation crash - Wikipedia

The aircraft, which was approved for operation with one pilot, took off from Jerez in southern Spain.[7] According to reports from Bild, the pilot reported a cabin pressure problem shortly before ATC contact was lost. The Cessna 551 Citation II was flying at 36,000 feet (11,000 m) at the time.[8][9]



Flight path map
Shortly after its entry into French airspace, around 14:25 UTC, the Cessna was intercepted by one Dassault Rafale, scrambled from Mont-de Marsan air base. A second Rafale from Saint-Dizier air base took over the interception. The Cessna was continuously followed by the French Air Force until it reached Cologne, around 15:57 UTC, when the German Air Force took over.[10] Two German Eurofighter Typhoon jets were scrambled from the Rostock-Laage air base at 16:15 GMT to contact the aircraft crew and were unsuccessful. Shortly after Rügen, the German fighter pilots broke away at 16:50 GMT.[7] The plane entered Swedish airspace, where it flew south of Gotland and on towards the Gulf of Riga.[1]

A Danish F-16 fighter jet took over the escort of the ghost flight. Later, the Danish Air Force said they could not see anybody in the cockpit after intercepting the plane.[7] The Danish jet pilots witnessed the plane going into a downward spiral and crashing 37 kilometres (23 mi; 20 nmi) off the shoreline of Latvia, far beyond the outer edge of the Latvian territorial sea, at around 17:45 GMT.[9]​

 

One thing I noticed, taking a closer look, Is that the plane doesn’t appear to have started to descend as it got close to its destination, Long Island, then it made the u turn. I’m assuming the different colors near its it’s take off point represent altitude. That seems odd. Makes me think something went wrong where the plane couldn’t/didn’t descend, but the pilot was still in control enough to make the u turn…

 

Son is avgeek who claims that autopilot can be programmed to return to origination if pilot fails to engage at final waypoint bit I have no ide id that is true or not