Supersonic aircraft tracked off San Diego coincided with mysterious 'skyquake'

There are strong indications that a mysterious boom heard in and around San Diego was from a supersonic aircraft on a training mission off the coast.

Residents of San Diego County in South California, as well as other nearby areas, heard and felt at least one loud boom late yesterday. The U.S. Geological Survey did not detect any earthquake activity at the time of this incident, which occurred at around 8:20 PM local time on June 8th, 2021, and that some are referring to as a "skyquake." There are strong indications that this was a sonic boom and flight tracking data available online does show an unidentified plane flying at supersonic speeds off the coast in a general area that regularly hosts military training exercises, among other military aviation activity, at around the same time. A U.S. Navy supercarrier was also training in the area yesterday.

The San Diego Union-Tribune has reported that people were talking about hearing and feeling the boom in areas as far east as El Cajon, a city in San Diego County, around 17 miles inland from the Pacific coastline, and as far as south as Tijuana, just over the border in Mexico. KMFB-TV, a local CBS affiliate in San Diego, said that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) had recorded a minor earthquake, which is not common in the region, at around 5:37 PM local time, but nothing at around 8:20 PM.

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Online flight tracking software recorded the following route, which was taken by an aircraft flying at supersonic speeds around the time of the reported "skyquake" on June 8, 2021. The dashed line seen heading off toward the northeast is actually a gap in the data and connects to an unrelated track in France.

Sonic booms are hardly unheard of in the area. There are a number of formalized U.S. military test and training areas off the coast of San Diego, as well as further to the north toward Los Angeles, where fast-flying fighter jets often operate and where high-speed flight testing, including of hypersonic vehicles, has taken place in the past. 

The Navy, in particular, also regularly conducts training in parts of the Pacific just off the coast of Mexico's Baja Peninsula. This includes workups for aircraft carrier strike groups, including their air wings, ahead of deployments. In addition to the fighter jets flying from these carriers' decks, these exercises can involve contractor-operated and military "red air" aggressor jets that are also capable of hitting supersonic speeds. This often includes these adversaries flying supersonic profiles meant to simulate incoming cruise missiles.

It's certainly important to also note that the Nimitz class carrier USS Carl Vinson was operating in the area yesterday. The ship had left San Diego two days earlier and returned off the coast today.

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By Joseph Trevithick / The Drive Contributor
By Tyler Rogoway / The Drive.com Writer
(Source: thedrive.com; June 9, 2021; https://tinyurl.com/yeya4ayk)
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