F-16 soldiers saw pilot of crashed plane near Washington collapse

Soldiers aboard the six F-16s that went to intercept the plane that crashed over Washington on Sunday saw the pilot of the plane collapse before his aircraft went down.

Sources familiar with the situation told the Washington Post that contact was lost with the plane, a Cessna Citation private jet flying from Tennessee to Long Island, New York, 15 minutes after takeoff as it passed over Virginia for the first time.

The pilot of one of the armed forces F-16s launched in search of the plane observed the person flying the Cessna plummet to the right side, the sources said.

A senior official told NBC News that the crashed plane took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, at about 13:13 local time (17:13 GMT) before air traffic controllers asked the pilot at about 13:28 local time (17:28 GMT) to stop his climb to 33,000 feet (10,058.4 metres).

The source said the private jet was heading north towards Long Island, but turned around in New York City and was heading south when F-16s took off in pursuit from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, on the outskirts of the capital.

According to the official, the plane ran out of fuel near Montebello, Virginia, at about 15:32 local time (19:32 GMT), and the pilot did not respond to any attempts to contact him.

Federal authorities began investigating the cause of the plane’s crash on Monday.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTBS) went to the crash site today to look for wreckage and clues to the cause of the crash.

The owner of the company that owned the aircraft, a man identified as John Rumple, told The Washington Post that authorities have told him that none of the four people on board survived.

Rumple said the passengers on the jet were his family members, including his daughter, grandson and a nanny.

NTBS investigators are expected to deliver a preliminary report on the incident within three weeks.

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