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The sonic booms that rattled resident physician of New Jersey up to Long Island , New York , yesterday may have been the resultant of belligerent spirt flight tests at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River , Maryland .
At 1:24 p.m. EST ( 18:24:05 UTC ) about 2 miles ( 3 kilometers ) due north - northeast of Hammonton , New Jersey , and 37 miles ( 60 kilometre ) in the south of Trenton , New Jersey , a transonic bunce was detectedat nearby seismometers in the reason . At least nine others were picked up in the following hr and a half along the Eastern Seaboard up to Long Island , allot to the U.S. Geological Survey ( USGS ) .
Sonic booms were reported over southern New Jersey and along the East Coast to Long Island, New York, on Jan. 28, 2016.
The speed of the seismal waves and other factors identified the event as transonic windfall and not earthquakes , according to John Bellini , a geophysicist with the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden , Colorado .
When an object such as an aircraft ( or an burst ) travel faster thanthe speed of sound(761.2 mph , or 1,225 km / h , at ocean - level ) , the result is a shockwave that also travels quicker than sound , Bellini say Live Science . [ Photos : See Aircraft bust the Sound Barrier ]
likely culprits were dominate out shortly after the roaring were recorded , with officials atNASA ’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia confirming there were n’t any rocket launch or squirt flights at the nerve center that could have caused the transonic boom . The Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command both also confirmed no nearby planes operating that may have caused the sonic booms , asreported by ABC Newsyesterday .
A nearby naval base was also cleared : " We have reports of dry land shaking in S. Jersey– currently our education ranges are clear and no MDL aircraft are capable of transonic boom , " official at Joint Base McGuire - Dix - Lakehurst wrote on Twitter . " We ’re work with local authorities to determine the cause and will have an update ASAP . "
But late in the good afternoon , the U.S. Navy released a statement about flight examination in the domain .
" Aircraft from Naval Test Wing Atlantic were carry on routine escape examination in the Atlantic Test Ranges this good afternoon that included activities which may have resulted in transonic boom , ” the Navy said in a statement , as reported by the Washington Post . " The test wing is critical to the safe test and evaluation of all character of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft in service and in developing and is primarily free-base out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River , Md. Other military aircraft , include both Navy and Air Force , also oftentimes utilise the ranges for testing and preparation . "
The transonic - boom culprits were likely the F-18 and the F-35C , which were the craft involved in the escape testing , fit in to the Washington Post . The F-18 , also called the F / A-18 Hornet , is a bang battler used as both an onset aircraft and a hero that has a max speed of Mach 1.8 , or 1.8 prison term the pep pill of sound in air . TheF-35C , a Joint Strike Fighter warplanedesigned to operate from the flight of stairs decks of aircraft carriers , can pass on speeds of Mach 1.6 , according to Lockheed Martin , the DoD contractor that is developing the fighter jet .
" Thursday ’s transonic godsend could well have been the result of a boldness - off between the F-35 and the older F-18 Hornet , a ultrasonic jet that the Navy has used since the mid eighties , " describe the Post .
