F-15s reach Palm Beach airspace at supersonic speed

PALM BEACH — Less than 14 minutes.

That’s how long it took for two F-15 fighter jets to fly from Homestead Air Reserve Base to Palm Beach on Friday night, a trip spanning about 110 miles.

Their mission? Intercept an unresponsive aircraft flying through restricted airspace above Mar-a-L ago, President Donald Trump’s part-time residence and winter White House, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The unresponsive plane was one of eight private aircraft that violated temporary flight restrictions Friday night, the Federal Aviation Administration said Saturday.

To get to the unresponsive plane as quickly as possible, the fighter jets flew at supersonic speeds. Assuming they weren’t flying at maximum speed of Mach 2.5, which is about 1,875 mph, the jets would have been traveling somewhere beyond the speed of sound, 717 mph.

Once they got close, they were able to inform the pilot of the unresponsive plane about the temporary flight restrictions, according to a spokesman for NORAD, adding that the pilot adjusted his course and stayed out of the area.

Pe o p l e o n t h e g ro u n d below the jets’ flight paths in Broward and Palm Beach counties reported hearing ro a r i n g “b o o m” s o u n d s and feeling reverberating shock waves. A man in Delray Beach told The Palm Beach Post he heard the jets at about 7 p.m. from his car and that the shock waves rattled his windows.

The FAA s a i d i t would investigate each of Friday night’s flight restriction violations and would try to educate local pilots about how to handle such circumstances in the future.