Heard two big booms about half an hour ago...just heard that there was a plane that veered a bit off it's flight plan when the Air Force One was in the air, and they quickly scrambled two fighters...nothing came of it, but man, those sonic booms are loud!

Fish on...

Todd

Pretty powerful here in Oly. I guess there were some ceiling tiles that fell down at our Chehalis Branch.

I'd hate to be a guy cruising around in a small Cessena or something and have a couple big dogs coming right up your arse at Mach 1.

Hope for change.

when i was a kid we heard them a lot. never thought any thing about the noise

I saw in the paper that the 911 lines were flooded with calls when this happened.

Have we become so fearful that anything that goes BOOM makes us call frantically for help? Seriously?

"I was outside sitting at my scroll saw."

For some reason that reminded me of the movie Fargo.

I like the reference, stlhead, but wasn't that a wood chipper? Pretty gruesome scene, for sure.

I'm probably the only one, but I actually wondered if Mt. St. Helens had blown again or something. When I brought that up, my co-worker, who was working in the same office when St. Helens blew in 1980, said he did recall feeling the eruption.

911 isn't an information hotline, Hankster.

Does it make anyone else a little nervous knowing they have to scramble F15's out of PDX to respond to an incident in Seattle?

Now I'm all for keeping the President safe and understand the SS's institutional paranoia but cmon-Really???

Air Force one was parked at Boeing Field. A Cessna from Lk. Chelan to Kenmore via Stevens Pass and they have to scramble F-15's from Portland? You’re kidding me right???

I can understand shutting down the air space when AF1 is in the air but whats the purpose when it's parked?

Seeing how 90% of what Gov. does makes no sense to me anyways I suppose this incident shouldn't be much of a surprise.

p.s. I slept right thru it.

I'm with Dan, I thought it was weird to scramble jets from Portland, Should of had a couple in the air in the area for the few hours that the Airforce one was here.

Yeah but then there'd be complaints about the cost.

It's not paranoia. The SS is required to investigate everything even off handed comments.

"If you heard what you thought were explosions, who would you call Dan?"

What would you be calling for? You didn't see anything. Why tie up the 911 line just to gather info?

"911 what's your emergency?". "I heard a loud boom somewhere and I was wondering if it's something I should be afraid of."

When I hear a big boom, I'm likely to say "I wonder WTF that was?", and then continue going about my business.

You go ahead and call 911, Hank.

why from portland. isn't there an air force base in tacoma? seem like the navy has an air base around seattle.

Were the jets actually scrambled from Portland, or were they already patrolling in the air and then directed to intercept? Strategically, if the POTUS is in the area, seems prudent to already have aircraft on patrol.

I don't get the idea of scrambling from Portland either, with AF jets at McChord and Navy jets at Whidbey, all closer and presumably on duty 24/7. Not sure what hours the Air National Guard keeps.

This morning's news says the couple in the float plane had no idea that AF1 was in Seattle or that airspace was closed as they flew from Lake Chelan back to north Lake Washington at Kenmore Air. SS interviewed them and inspected their plane for 90 minutes. Man that woulda' been a pain if they had a dab of left over recreational herb in their luggage.

Airplanes can deliver and are themselves weapons. They close the airspace so nobody goes kamakazi on POTUS

It's funny, I thought hank was JOKING about using 911 as his personal information line. Amazing.

"recreational herb in their luggage"

I really don't think the SS would do anything about that. They are above all of that petty stuff.

McChord is a MAC (Military Airlift Command) base, I believe? Which means that they have large cargo aircraft like the C-141 and C-5A... not fighters like the F-15.

Naval Station Whidbey isn't the home of fighter jets either.

I believe the closest Air National Guard unit is in Portland? I see them flying training missions over the Columbia gorge every Summer that I'm down there.

I had just put in my headphones, started my stopwatch, and started my afternoon run when the first sonic boom sounded. I was thinking "That's right big guy you are running fast today!", and then the second one sounded and I hadn't changed pace so I ruled out my blazing speed.