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A sonic boom has rocked houses across the south east of England after RAF jets were launched to intercept a civilian plane.
Residents in parts of Essex, Kent, Suffolk, London and Cambridgeshire reported hearing a ‘loud bang’ just before midday on Friday.
The RAF confirmed it had launched a Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon fighter jet from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to escort a private jet which had lost contact with air traffic control to Stansted.
A spokesperson said: ‘Communications were re-established and the aircraft was safely escorted to Stansted. The Typhoons are returning to base.’
The RAF Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 aircraft was spotted on flight radars at the time the explosion was heard, and escorted the aircraft from Nice in the South of France to the London airport after it lost contact with the ground.
Essex Police received calls from concerned homeowners around 11.40am, with some reporting their walls and windows shaking.
One resident in Greenhithe, Kent, said she was at her home when she heard a loud ‘vacuum-style’ bang, which she thought was a ‘demolition or house explosion’.
Jenny Coxall said: ‘I thought it was someone hitting our garage, but when I went outside, all our neighbours were on the street, wondering what had happened.’
Flight radar showed the RAF Typhoon jets were scrambled over London
The RAF’s Quick Reaction Alert unit escorted an unresponsive plane flying from Nice to London’s Stansted Airport
An RAF Typhoon Jet was deployed at around 11.40am this morning to intercept an unresponsive plane flying from Nice
She added: ‘My daughter was on the phone to her friend in Bexleyheath, who heard it. It was heard all over north Kent, like Greenhithe, Swanley and Bexley.
‘I was working in Medway 10 years ago in the office and I remember a similar vacuum-like bang and that’s what made me think ‘oh that’s a sonic boom’.’
The RAF has apologised for any inconvenience caused to the public.
A ‘sonic boom’ is a loud, explosive noise that happens when the sound barrier is broken by an object travelling faster than the speed of sound, which at ground level is about 761mph.
The aircraft displaces the air and creates pressure waves that become compressed and are then released in a shockwave.
An aircraft flying at 20,000ft would create a sonic boom cone 20 miles wide.
The RAF’s Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) jets are a high-readiness unit which are deployed in response to ‘unidentified or unresponsive aircraft approaching or entering UK-controlled airspace’, according to the UK Defence Journal.
