Sonic Booms!

[Workingman]

Mystery solved.

Yesterday evening, just before 10:00 pm, there were two extremely loud bangs: BANG! BANG!. It could not have been thunder as the skies were clear, but it got a lot of curtains twitching and a few car alarms went off.

It turns out that two RAF Typhoons had been scrambled from RAF Coningsby to intercept an unidentified aircraft not responding to air traffic control. The plane was an Air France airliner with communications problems.

[meriad]

good to know they're quick to react though - that is reassuring!

Poor AF pilots, must have been a bit of a worry for them and the passengers to all of a sudden have these fighter planes next to you!

[Kaz]

Blimey yes, Ria, just imagine

It is good to know how quickly the RAF respond though

[Weka]

We had fighter planes escort one flight I was on on our way to London. The flight plan brought us down from Russia over Europe to London.

Definitely an awesome sight looking out the window and seeing an escort.

I still have no idea why it happened

[Workingman]

We had fighter planes escort one flight I was on on our way to London. The flight plan brought us down from Russia over Europe to London.

Definitely an awesome sight looking out the window and seeing an escort.

I still have no idea why it happened

The RAF does lots of 'training' flights with airliners, but most of the time they keep out of sight. They are there though.

[Gal]

I read about this - the plane was heading to Newcastle airport but experienced communication problems....we heard no noise in Grasmere but everywhere else in the country did! Someone posted the flight path the plane had taken with no communication - zigzagging in the North Sea!!