BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua)-According to foreign media reports, on the 4th local time, a light plane was suspected to have broken into the sky above Washington, USA, and was chased by American fighter planes at high speed. The light plane eventually crashed in Virginia, and the identity of the owner and crew of the plane attracted attention.
According to The Washington Post and The New York Times, this plane is a private business plane registered with a company named Encore Motors of Melbourne in Florida, USA.
Image source: The New York Times report screenshot
American media contacted the company’s operator, 75-year-old John Roupell, by telephone. He revealed that his daughter, two-year-old granddaughter, nanny and pilot were all on the plane.
John Roupell said he knew little about the crash. He said in a choked voice that if the plane loses pressure, "they will all fall asleep and never wake up again … … I don’t think they have found the wreckage yet. It drops at a speed of 20,000 feet per minute, and no one can survive in this situation. "
The Daily Beast, an American news website, noted that Barbara Roupell, the wife of John Roupell, was registered as the president of Encore Motors of Melbourne, but she declined to comment.
According to the records of the Federal Election Commission obtained by this website, Mr. and Mrs. John Roupell are both well-known business people in Florida. In the past few years, they have donated money to many Republican candidates running for federal office, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to former President Trump and his political organization.
According to the report, public information shows that Barbara Roupell is also a long-term member of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Since 2002, she has been a member of the NRA Women’s Leadership Committee.
On the 4th local time, a Cessna light plane was suspected to have broken into the sky above Washington, and the US F-16 jet fighter scrambled for high-speed pursuit, causing a sonic boom over the US capital. During this period, the US military tried to establish contact with the pilots on Cessna plane.
According to the statement of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Cessna plane took off from Elizabethan, Tennessee on the 4th and was scheduled to fly to Long Island, new york. But inexplicably, the plane turned around over Long Island and plummeted over Washington, D.C.. The plane later crashed in the mountains of southwest Virginia.
It is not clear why the Cessna plane did not respond to the control of the authorities, and it is not clear why it crashed.