A loud bang described as an explosion shook homes across parts of southern England on Wednesday, with reports from Essex, London, Cambridge and as far as Suffolk and Kent. The noise was confirmed to be a sonic boom caused by a fast jet breaking the sound barrier.
Residents described their shock as houses trembled. One woman in Billericay, Essex, said: 'The house shook and my ears are still hurting now. It was like an explosion had gone off.' Another local, aged 46, added: 'It made the house shake, I've never heard of a sonic boom before but it was really loud.' Cambridge PhD student Guy Aglionby reported the boom came from a Eurofighter Typhoon travelling at least 995 knots.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that two RAF Typhoons were scrambled from RAF Coningsby to intercept a private jet that had lost communications. The jets were authorised to fly supersonic, resulting in the sonic boom heard over Cambridgeshire and beyond.
Social media users shared their experiences, with TV host Rylan Clark-Neal calling it 'bloody loud'. Cambridge City Council reassured residents that the noise was a sonic boom from a fighter plane. A sonic boom occurs when an object travels faster than the speed of sound, creating a cone of pressurised air molecules.
