Four died in ‘ghost plane’ crash that sparked Washington security scare

Four people, including the pilot, were killed in Sunday's crash of a ‘ghost plane’ that caused a security scare when it flew over restricted airspace near Washington, authorities said.

The Department of Defense scrambled F-16 fighter jets, which triggered a sonic boom over the US capital as they pursued the private Cessna that crashed in southwest Virginia.

The pilot appearing to be unresponsive at the controls, possibly rendered unconscious when the pressure inexplicably dropped. The aircraft then crashed near Raphine, Virginia, leaving a “crater” that suggested almost a nosedive.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that all the four people were killed in the crash, without identifying them. There were no survivors, Virginia State Police said. The crash site had at most only four recognizable pieces from the plane, the New York Post reported citing a responder. “There was nothing really bigger than your arm,” the responder said.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator Adam Gerhardt said the wreckage was highly fragmented. The accident site is heavily wooded, and the rural mountainous terrain makes it "a very challenging accident site." The NTSB will remove wreckage and move it to a secure location in Delaware.

"Basically everything is on the table," Gerhardt said of the investigation. "The airplane, the engines, the weather conditions, pilot qualifications, the maintenance records — all aspects will be of course items we routinely look at."

The Cessna was not required to have a black box, but investigators will search in the hopes there was one, Gerhardt said. 

He said a preliminary report on the crash could be out in about 10 days, although a final report would likely take one to two years.

John Rumpel of Encore Motors confirmed that his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter and a nanny were aboard the doomed flight along with their pilot.

The Cessna appeared to be flying on autopilot, a report said though it’s not clear why the plane was nonresponsive or why it crashed.

Rumpel told the New York Times his family was returning to their East Hampton home Sunday after visiting him in North Carolina.