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MONTEBELLO (AP) – An unresponsive business jet that caused a scramble of military aircraft over DC has crashed in rugged mountainous territory in Augusta County near the Nelson County line.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York’s Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed over mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, around 3:30 p.m. The jet caused a sonic boom during the afternoon heard over a large portion of northern Virginia.
It was not immediately clear why the plane was nonresponsive, why it crashed or how many people were on board.
A U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press that the military jet had scrambled to respond to the small plane, which later crashed. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.