Bengaluru News: The aircraft was far away from city limits when the sonic boom occured
A mysterious "boom" heard in large parts of Bengaluru this afternoon that left residents of the city and social media users puzzled later turned out to be the sonic boom of a test aircraft.
"It was a routine IAF Test Flight involving a supersonic profile which took off from Bluru Airport and flew in the allotted airspace well outside City limits. The aircraft was of Aircraft Systems and Testing Establishment (ASTE)," the Defence Ministry tweeted. "…The sonic boom was probably heard while the aircraft was decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speed between 36,000 and 40000 feet altitude," it said.
"The aircraft was far away from the city limits when this occurred. The sound of a sonic boom can be heard and felt by an observer even when the aircraft is flying as far away as 65 to 80 kilometres away from the person," the ministry said.
The sound was heard from as far as the Bengaluru airport in Devanahalli to the IT hub of Electronic City 54 km away. It was also heard in Kalyan Nagar in east Bengaluru, central Bengaluru's MG Road and areas such as Marathahalli, Whitefield, Sarjapur and Hebbagodi.
Many people had speculated that the sound could have been caused by a fighter jet.
It was not an earthquake, Karnataka's state disaster monitoring centre had tweeted earlier.
"Earthquake activity will not be restricted to one area and will be widespread. We have checked our sensors and there is no earthquake activity recorded today," the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre said, quoting its director Srinivas Reddy.
"The activity reported in Bengaluru is not due to an earthquake. The seismometers did not capture any ground vibration as generally happens during a mild Tremor. The activity is purely a loud unknown noise," the agency tweeted.
#Bangalore and #BangaloreBoom was among the top trends on Twitter this afternoon.
There were no calls to the police control room reporting any damage.