A loud bang startled residents in London on Saturday, prompting frantic calls to police. The culprits were two RAF Typhoon fighter jets flying at supersonic speed to ‘intercept’ a Turkey-bound plane with an unruly passenger.
The jets were scrambled to accompany a British low-cost airline Jet2 flight back to London Stansted Airport, about 40 miles northeast of central London, after an “extremely disruptive” 25-year-old woman allegedly began wreaking havoc on board.
The bold, and some might argue, over-the-top action was taken after Essex Police were notified that the woman was endangering the aircraft with her bad behavior.
Apparently not wasting any time, the jets shot to the skies, accelerating past the speed of sound and producing a shockwave known as a sonic boom. Its sound, akin to a huge explosion, prompted panic in the area.
Many took to Twitter to report their first-hand experiences while guessing what might have caused it.
“My windows nearly just went threw (sic)!!! What the f*ck was that!! We just scrambled a jet!! Super sonic boom!” a user wrote.
“Am staying in a hotel near Stansted, and like many other people it seems (looking at Twitter), just heard a HUGE explosion - Ground shook and everything... Hope to Christ it was simply a sonic boom...” another commented.
Some said that the sound was so powerful that local dogs went into a barking frenzy.
Essex Police confirmed that the noise that shook the area northeast of Greater London was in fact a “sonic boom from a passing aircraft.”
They said that the woman was taken into custody on suspicion of two counts of assault and one of endangering the aircraft. It is unclear what exactly the woman did to warrant the charges and the use of multi-million-dollar fighter jets.
Jet2 said that the plane landed back at Stansted without incident.
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