Updated 3:45 p.m. Did you hear those big booms just before 2 p.m.? “I may be crazy, but our building just shook sideways,” says Dan from Shilshole. “Everyone ran outside, as we thought someone drove into our building.”
The FAA says it was sonic booms from two military F-15 jets that scrambled from Portland after Presidential airspace was breached by a small aircraft, reports KING 5. President Obama is visiting Seattle today. According to our news partner, The Seattle Times, the pilot of a seaplane landed at Kenmore Air on Lake Union unaware of the flight restriction. A passenger on the plane tells the Associated Press that they were flying in from Lake Chelan.
“I’m on the 47th floor of Columbia Center in downtown Seattle,” wrote Kristen on My Ballard’s Facebook page. “We really felt the explosion here and for a moment thought something struck the building. Still feeling a bit shaken up.”
The booms were heard across Seattle, but especially in West Seattle and down in Pierce County — many residents there were shaken enough to call 911. West Seattle Blog, which briefly crashed under the deluge of traffic, reports that 911 lines were jammed with all the callers.
Twitter lit up seconds after the booms with people asking what happened. “Heard really loud shots in ballard…rattled all our windows…then heard buncha planes…anyone know what’s going on?” asked @mangopowergirl. You can see many of the tweets under the hashtag #waboom.