Every year in Brazil they celebrate something called Praça dos Três Poderes in their capital city. It is an exchanging of the national flag that happens out in front of the Supreme Federal Court building. The awesomely beautiful building has a ton of glass, from head to toe. Part of this celebration was to have 2 Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters do a high speed flyby. They went a little too fast and the ensuing sonic booms completely shattered every pane of glass on that building.
The spiking air pressure that is caused when an object goes faster than the speed of sound can cause an audible booming noise often referred to as a “sonic boom.” When the sonic boom happens that close to the ground it has the ability to shatter glass. The delta winged Dassault Mirage 2000 has a top speed of mach 2.2 so hitting this was probably an accident, but negligence non the less. I’d be really surprised if the pilots didn’t get in a lot of trouble.
In a statement, Brig Ar Kanitz Marcelo Damasceno, chief of the Center for Social Communication of the Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB), said that the Brazilian Air Force Command has initiated the investigation of the incident and will compensate the damage caused.
All I can say is that Guile would be proud.
Image courtesy of Capcom
Cover image courtesy of the Department of Defense.