A 2005 Cessna Citation Bravo business jet. Susan Montoya Bryan/Associated Press. NPR’s Joe Hernandez and Russell Lewis contributed to this report. Which we lifted in whole since we cut the “news feed” a couple weeks ago. There was a consensus that the “news” was getting out of control and getting us down. There was other strange stuff. Chief Executives were falling down, and the commentator class was getting isolated in their observations. Here is how Joe and Russell summed it up as Sunday faded:

” Military fighter jets intercepted an unresponsive plane that flew over Washington, D.C., before the plane crashed in mountainous southwest Virginia on Sunday afternoon.”
There was more detail, of course, including a flight of four F-16 fighters responding at “supersonic speeds that produced a loud boom heard over the nation’s capital region”
We did not hear it, and sometimes forget we live in a target area. There are things to recall about that matter, now more than twenty years ago. That morning featured a brief visit to the Pentagon before a jet rolled in. Memorable time.

This Cessna Citation business jet was reported to have , departed Elizabethton, TN, bound for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport in New York. It did not land there. Instead, the pilot turned around over Long Island and flew a straight path back over D.C. at 34K feet before crashing in the Staunton/Blue Ridge Parkway region. State Police spokesmen said “Search efforts are still underway.” Initial reports are that the pilot and three passengers were lost in the jet’s plummet to earth.There will doubtless be more news through the morning, but we are not watching. It is not as exciting as the last time we were targets, but we felt the need to at least report the matter. We are vaguely in the news business, you know?

– Vic