Cessna jet bound for New York crashes near Staunton, Va.

A Cessna Citation jet was destroyed when it disappeared from radar screens and crashed near Staunton, Va., on Sunday.

Flight tracking data from websites like Flightaware.com show that the plane left Elizabethton Municipal Airport, Tenn., on Sunday and headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York.

The jet never landed in New York and made a course reversal about one hour and 15 minutes into the flight and continued a straight path for about 50 miles.

Flight tracking data shows that the airplane began a rapidly descending right spiral from 34,000 feet, followed by another spiral at 20,000 ft. The FAA confirmed the jet crashed near Staunton, Va.

The aircraft is a Cessna 560 Citation V (registration N611VG) manufactured in 1990. The multi-engine jet is registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc. in Florida, according to FAA records.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command sent F-16 aircraft to intercept the unresponsive jet once it entered airspace near Washington, D.C.

The F-16 aircraft made several attempts to establish contact with the pilot until it crashed. The jet was intercepted at approximately 3:20 p.m. EDT. The pilot was unresponsive. The Cessna soon crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia.

This is the fourth fatal plane crash in Virginia now under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board in 2023. Two fatal plane crashes were reported near Suffork and Dayton in January and one in Hillsville, Va., in February.