Shock in paris: plane breaks through sound barrier
With a loud bang, a french air force rafale fighter jet scared hundreds of thousands of people in paris and the surrounding area.
The military plane broke the sound barrier to get to a liner that had lost radio contact, defense minister florence parly announced via twitter on wednesday.
Many people initially thought it was an explosion. A reporter from the german press agency reported a pressure wave in the south of paris that briefly printed his house inwards.
The bang also briefly interrupted dominik koepfer’s match against swiss stan wawrinka at the french open. The two players stood irritated for a moment on the field when the noise was heard.
The scene brought back memories of the terror at the stade de france in november 2015. At that time, detonations were heard during the football friendly between germany and france.
The fighter jet broke the sound barrier shortly before 12 o’clock in the paris area. The police gave the all-clear shortly afterwards and asked frightened citizens not to block the emergency lines.
An air force spokesman told the BFMTV news channel and other media that the rafale jet was scheduled to fly at 11.45 o’clock in the east french saint-dizier took off as "sky police" to a plane with no radio communication near paris. Then a second plane got into trouble in the west of the capital, and the pilot accelerated to supersonic speed at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. Both civil aircraft were able to restore their radio communications.
Fear of terror is omnipresent in france. Only on friday, an attacker had attacked and injured two people with a chopper near the former editorial offices of the satirical magazine "charlie hebdo. He is under investigation on suspicion of terrorism. France’s government repeatedly warns that the risk of terrorism in the country is extremely high.
There were also brief signs of shock on the stock market. The french leading index cac-40 and the german dax each fell by almost half a percent. When the cause became apparent, the indices made up for their losses.