RAF fighter flies supersonic to intercept mystery aircraft near London

The boom rang was heard as far afield as Cambridge and Essex.

The Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft were scrambled from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire on what is known as a quick reaction alert (QRA).

A similar incident occurred in December 2019, when two Typhoon jets caused a "loud bang" above London and Hertfordshire.

An RAF fighter was at the centre of a Police operation after being requested to intercept a plane that took off from Nurnberg just before 11 am on Tuesday morning.

He tweeted: "Absolutely no coincidence that I'm hitting golf balls on the Rec and there is a sonic boom heard in Cambridge".

"If you heard a massively loud bang over #Cambridge in the last few minutes, don't panic - apparently it was the sonic boom from a fighter plane breaking the sound barrier!" said the local authority. The council wrote on Twitter.

The Ministry of Defence that said the explosive sound was a sonic boom produced by the two Typhoon Quick Alert jets going supersonic as they had, according to reports, been authorised to transit at supersonic speed for operational reasons.

"Honestly thought a bomb went off but yeah it was a sonic boom in Cambridge!"

The loud explosion was caused by a sonic boom from an RAF Typhoon which flew over the county today.

"At first I thought it was either an explosion or an quake ..."

Such a military response is standard if air traffic control loses radio contact with a pilot.