WESTON, Fla. – Several Northwest Broward residents from neighborhoods in Weston, Coral Springs, Plantation and Tamarac reported hearing an explosion on Friday night. There were similar reports in a nearby area in Palm Beach County.
Two U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagles took off from Homestead Air National Guard Base and flew at supersonic speeds, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command.
This caused the sonic boom, a sound created when an object travels faster than the speed of sound. The fighter jets were responding to a violation of a temporary flight restriction that was in place during President Donald Trump's arrival to South Florida, according to Air Traffic Control calls.
Before the NORAD report was released, there was confusion. Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Joy Oglesby said the noise "most likely came from military planes." The Coral Springs Fire Department attributed the reports to a military exercise.
"The military was doing an exercise over the Everglades," said Dan Daley, Coral Springs' vice mayor, on Twitter. "An airplane broke the sound barrier causing a sonic boom."
Earlier this year, U.S. Navy spokesman Connie Hempel reported super sonic flights took place about the same time residents in four New Jersey counties reported hearing loud booms. The Pentagon was reportedly testing the Lockheed Martin Corporation's F-35C fighter jets.
TRUMP IN FLORIDA
After a visit to a Boeing plant in South Carolina, Trump will be spending the holiday weekend in Mar-a-Lago. The ride from the airport to his estate on Friday afternoon didn't go smoothly. The Secret Service was investigating items that protesters threw at Trump's motorcade on Friday afternoon in Palm Beach.
Several agents gathered at an intersection along Southern Boulevard, while a crime scene unit from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office collected the items. Security will be high in Melbourne on Saturday, where Trump plans to hold a rally at an airport hangar.
Local 10 News' Marcine Joseph, Robert Alpizar and Carlos Suarez contributed to this report. Clarification: An earlier version of this story reported the possibility that the sonic boom was caused by F-35C flights. Authorities later reported the sonic boom came from two F-15 Eagles.