By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Three loud sonic booms that shook buildings and people along the central Oregon coast Tuesday afternoon were caused by a mistake by an Oregon Air National Guard pilot during training exercises, a military spokesman said Wednesday.
The booms occurred about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and rattled buildings and people from Yachats to Neskowin and as far inland as Siletz.
Hundreds of people who heard or felt it took to various community Facebook pages to ask what happened and speculate – incorrectly by a wide margin – that the boom could be linked to a swarm of more than 115 earthquakes that has been occurring for more than a week 250 miles out to sea and six miles deep.
Sgt. Steve Conkin, a spokesman for the Portland-based 142nd Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard, told YachatsNews on Wednesday that it was a pilot’s mistake with “very unfortunate timing.”
Conkin said Air National Guard pilots train every weekday off the Oregon coast or in eastern Oregon. On the coast, the training area stretches from offshore Astoria to off the south end of Lincoln County. Pilots fly one- and two-seat F15 Eagles as part of their mission to protect the airspace from northern California to Canada.
U.S. Air Force Col. Todd Hofford, commander of the 142nd Wing, said one of four F-15 Eagles on a training exercise violated rules meant to prevent sonic booms from hitting the coast. Two planes were acting as “good guys” and two as “bad guys” during the exercise, he said.
The rules call for pilots to only go supersonic if they are more than 15 miles off the coast and above 15,000 feet and either parallel to or pointed away from the coast. Hofford said the pilot who caused the sonic boom was pointed at a 45 degree angle toward the coast, which aimed the boom east.
Conklin said the Air Guard is looking at ways to prevent future mistakes like the one that occurred Tuesday.
“It was a mistake and a very unfortunate mistake,” Conklin said.
A sonic boom is a noise similar to thunder caused by an object moving faster than sound — about 750 miles per hour. When an aircraft exceeds the speed of sound, pressure waves combine and form shock waves which then travel forward from the plane, according to the Department of Defense.
That was the issue Tuesday.
Thousands of coastal residents have been monitoring or reading about a swarm of more than 115 small to moderate earthquakes occurring for more than a week 250 miles west of the central Oregon coast.
The quakes along the Blanco fracture zone have measured magnitude 2.5 to 5.8, and some people have reported to a U.S. Geological Survey website that they have felt them. Many others Tuesday afternoon went to the website to report that had felt what they thought was an earthquake — but was actually the sonic boom.
Federal agencies have repeatedly said the swarm – although comprised of numerous earthquakes — were far too small to trigger a tsunami.
The Blanco fracture zone is among the most seismically active in North America and part of the boundary of the between the Pacific plate’s eastern edge and the Juan de Fuca plate’s western edge. The Blanco zone is much farther west of the more concerning Cascadia subduction zone and rarely leads to destructive quakes, according to earthquake experts.
Conkin said Tuesday’s sonic boom “was very unfortunate timing.”
Hofford, who just took command of the fighter wing this month, is a native of Ashland, and often spends time at the beach with his family, and always is alert in case tsunami sirens go off after a big earthquake. So he said he understood how coastal residents might have felt unnerved by the sonic boom after a week of small earthquakes.
“We screwed up,” Hofford said. “We try not to do this.”
- Lee J. Siegel of Beverly Beach, a former Associated Press reporter, contributed to this report.
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Conkin said Air National Guard pilots train every weekday off the Oregon coast or in eastern Oregon. They fly one- and two-seat F15 Eagles as part of their mission to protect the airspace from northern California to Canada. The Air Guard has 1,400 people and more than 20 F-15 Eagles station at the Portland Air National Guard Base.
He said there were three to four Eagles flying off the coast Tuesday – they are supposed to stay at least 15 miles from land – when one of the jets broke the sound barrier with its nose pointed toward land. That caused the sonic boom to travel east toward the coastline.
“It’s not normal procedure,” he told YachatsNews. “We’re looking at ways to prevent it in the future. It was a mistake and a very unfortunate mistake.”
A sonic boom is a noise similar to thunder caused by an object moving faster than sound — about 750 miles per hour. When an aircraft exceeds the speed of sound, pressure waves combine and form shock waves which then travel forward from the plane, according to the Department of Defense.
That was the issue Tuesday.
Thousands of coastal residents have been monitoring or reading about a swarm of more than 160 small to moderate earthquakes occurring for more than a week 250 miles west of the central Oregon coast.
The quakes along the Blanco fracture zone have measured magnitude 2.5 to 5.8, and some people have reported to a U.S. Geological Survey website that they have felt them. Many others Tuesday afternoon went to the website to report that had felt what they thought was an earthquake — but was actually the sonic boom.
Federal agencies have repeatedly said the swarm – although comprised of numerous earthquakes — were far too small to trigger a tsunami.
The Blanco fracture zone is among the most seismically active in North America and part of the boundary of the between the Pacific plate’s eastern edge and the Juan de Fuca plate’s western edge. The Blanco zone is much farther west of the more concerning Cascadia subduction zone and rarely leads to destructive quakes, according to earthquake experts.
Conkin said Tuesday’s sonic boom “was very unfortunate timing.”
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Thank you for this article. It was startling to say the least and I have been wondering and maybe a little disconcerted.
What a waste of resources, nearly $800 billion for defense; we can’t educate our children, feed our hungry, or house our unsheltered, but we can fly around and torment wildlife. Yes the cause is explained to us, but the natural world shudders from our continual assault. Nature does bat last however.
My concern over the sonic booms is the damage that can happen to infrastructures.