A sonic boom that rattled a swath of the Washington area on Sunday was the result of a sonic boom caused by military aircraft, local officials said.

The F-16 fighter jets were scrambling to chase down a private plane that then went down over Virginia, the Washington Post reported. The plane, a Cessna, was unresponsive when hailed by authorities, US officials told the newspaper.

The Federal Aviation Administartion confirmed that a Cessna Citation, a popular business jet, crashed into mountainous terrain in Montebello, Virginia, around 3:30 p.m. ET. The aircraft took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and was bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, the FAA said.

The crash occurred more than 100 miles to the southwest of Washington. Airspace near Washington has been highly restricted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and New York’s World Trade Center.

A loud sound heard over Washington and parts of Maryland and Virginia on Sunday was the result of a sonic boom from military aircraft, the Anne Arundel County Office of Emergency Management said on Twitter. The agency said there is not a threat associated with this incident.

--With assistance from Alan Levin.