VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Not everyone noticed it Tuesday morning, but a lot of people in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake did. "It' was a loud noise that, in some spots, came with a little ground shaking.
Some thought it was an explosion. Some thought it was a sonic boom. Some thought it was huge crash of some kind.
A lot of people started chatting about it on Facebook, and some people reached out to 13News Now.
So, we started reaching out.
We checked with emergency dispatchers. Nothing.
We checked with firefighters. They didn't seem to know anything about it.
Then, we reached out to a public affairs officer for Naval Air Station Oceana.
Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg said officials were looking into the origin of the noise, then confirmed on Wednesday that the sound was a sonic boom:
Based on preliminary analysis of data by Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility (FACSFAC) Virginia Capes and Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic, we can confirm that a sonic boom was heard in the Salem area of Virginia Beach at approximately at 1030 on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. Military aircraft were operating in a designated airspace off of the coast of Virginia conducting routine flight operations.
In April 2019, the area experienced a similar sonic boom that came from a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet based at NAS Oceana.