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Happened at 18:10 this evening. I heard it, thought a plane had hit my house roof!
Listened to local radio and it took over an hour for the MOD to say...
A loud bang which sparked a deluge of calls to emergency services across a large part of England was a sonic boom from a Typhoon aircraft, the MoD said.
Mystified residents across the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire reported hearing a loud boom at about 18:10 BST.
The MoD revealed it was from a Typhoon responding to an emergency call.
A Coventry resident said: "I thought somebody had thrown a brick through the window."
The Ministry of Defence initially said it was investigating what was behind a loud noise in Oxfordshire but a spokesman later confirmed it was from one of two RAF Typhoons that had been launched following an emergency call from a helicopter.
The MoD said the Typhoons were scrambled after the small civilian helicopter had emitted an emergency signal.
It said the aircraft were already on their way to the helicopter by the time the helicopter pilot realised he was transmitting on the wrong frequency and switched to the correct one.
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service had also said it was looking into what caused the noise, after a flood of calls.
'Strange noise'
Some of those who heard it said the sound lasted a few seconds.
The British Geological Survey had also said it was investigating the incident.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It was doing really tight slow circles and it suddenly put on full power and the noise was unbelievable”
Terry Organ Bath
There were reports of the noise being heard in Bath, Swindon, Coventry, Rugby and Oxford.
Terry Organ, from Oakfield Park, Bath, said: "We just got back from doing some shopping and we got out the car and we heard this rather strange noise.
"I thought it was a commercial airliner and then I thought 'no way', it was like the aircraft I heard at Farnborough.
"We watched for a while and then we saw this aircraft appear and it was a Typhoon but it was flying amazingly slow and we thought it was going to come down.
"It was doing really tight slow circles and it suddenly put on full power and the noise was unbelievable, it was really blasting it out, and then it moved a bit further on and it did another slow turn.
"My impression was that it was struggling to stay up but then he put on full power again and you just couldn't hear anything.
"The noise was terrific, I imagine you could hear it for miles."
It is the second time this year that a sonic boom has been created by a Typhoon aircraft.
In January, the MoD confirmed that a loud noise heard by people across the north of England was caused by an RAF fighter jet breaking the sound barrier.
Cool!
1994 Rover Coupe Turbo for the booooost
2004 MG ZT CDTi+ 135 for the mpg
Theres been a few flying around recently, They've been training for the olympics apparently incase of a terrorist attack. 2 landed at Birmingham airport a few weeks back.
jase wrote:why send a pair of typhoons to a downed helicopter tho? Its not like martin martian had arrived and started taking out civvy choppers????
Still, tis pretty cool
J
Because of this:
The MoD said the Typhoons were scrambled after the small civilian helicopter had emitted an emergency signal.
It said the aircraft were already on their way to the helicopter by the time the helicopter pilot realised he was transmitting on the wrong frequency and switched to the correct one.
Means the pilot probably set his "squawk" box to transmit the "Hijacked" code. All aircraft have a squawk box that transmit various codes to indicate what the aircraft is and what state it is in, this code shows on every air traffic radar.
99 T reg 620 Ti
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Means the pilot probably set his "squawk" box to transmit the "Hijacked" code.
ah, right. I thought it was just a im down, help me transmission!
I guess they need to be ready and respond (even for practise sake) as iirc one of the issues in the states when the trade centre was hit was depsite there enormous air force there were only 2 figters on standby on whole east coast!
J
"To try is the first step on the long road to failure"
Going back a number of years I was parked on the car park of the KFC opposite the British Aerospace at Warton in Preston, when a Typhoon took off sedately from the runway and started to do what I can only describe as dossing about in the air! It was like he was just given the "keys" after having a few tweeks done and told to take it for a spin to see how it handled.
He just stayed within the confines of the aerospace grounds performing stupidly slow manoeuvres you wouldn't think possible for a plane, probably only 300 or so feet high (the markings on the jet were clearly visible) before slowly flying over the road in a loop over the KFC and my car which made the sunroof and side windows rattle (the sound was just epic) then dashed off in a straight line to goodness knows where!
I was sat there thinking, what a blumin job he's got
i was listening to a bit of flyleaf really effing loud so missed it but i used to be in the air training corps as a kid so heard many back then when staying at RAF bases and the sound is immense bit gutted i missed it really as you tube just doesnt do them justice
but i used to be in the air training corps as a kid so heard many back then when staying at RAF bases and the sound is immense bit gutted i missed it really as you tube just doesnt do them justice
