A small, Long Island, N.Y.-bound plane crashed Sunday into a mountainous region in Virginia after fighter jets were sent to pursue it.
The Cessna Citation was traveling to MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma from Tennessee’s Elizabethton Municipal Airport when it went down around 3:30 p.m. near Montebello, Va., the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed to the Daily News.
The FAA has not released the cause of the crash, but the plane went down after violating airspace around Washington, D.C, according to reports.
![A view of the Blue Ridge Mountain in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.](https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/0EFC61Vl1tz4Mpst5HgZBEmqln0=/1024x0/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/43MNTC23KFE7VBCTSCAWYFG424.jpg)
The jet fighters reportedly followed the Cessna but did not cause the crash, officials said. The Cessna’s pilot did not respond to authorities and the plane was suspected to be on autopilot, a source told Reuters.
Residents in the Washington metropolitan area described hearing a loud noise Sunday afternoon. The Office of Emergency Management for Annapolis, Md., said an authorized Department of Defense flight caused the “loud boom.”
“This flight caused a sonic boom,” the office wrote on Twitter before 4 p.m. “That is all the information available at this time.”
D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management also acknowledged the noise shortly after 3:30 p.m.
“We are aware of reports from communities throughout the National Capital Region of a loud ‘boom’ this afternoon,” the agency wrote on Twitter. “There is no threat at this time.”
Cessna Citation planes can seat up to 12 people. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.