SAN DIEGO (AP/CBS8) —The Navy says a big boom that rattled nerves across San Diego County on Friday afternoon was caused by fighter jets performing over the ocean.
Two F/A-18 fighter jets were flying as part of a Family Day cruise on the USS Carl Vinson about 35 miles off the coast. The jets broke the sound barrier, causing the boom.
"The F/A-18 is one of our premier fighter aircrafts and it's designed to go faster than the speed of sound," said Lt. Aaron Kakiel of Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Researcher Kristoffer Walker from Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement that sonic booms offshore usually don't reach land, unless the sound is caught by powerful winds in the atmosphere and carried to San Diego.
A similar event, called a "sky quake," also happened in San Diego on April 13, 2012.
Some San Diego-area residents say they heard a loud boom and felt the ground shake but the U.S. Geological Survey says there was no earthquake.
San Diego police spokeswoman Lt. Andra Brown says three residents called to report the noise, including one in the La Jolla area whose windows rattled about five seconds. One police sergeant said it sounded like a sonic boom.