WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A military aircraft dropping parachutists into a Washington baseball game sparked a security alarm at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and prompted the evacuation of the seat of the U.S. Congress, police said.
The U.S. Capitol Police first said they were tracking an aircraft that posed a “probable threat” to the Capitol complex and then minutes later said there was no threat and that they evacuated the building out of an abundance of caution.
The District of Columbia Police later said the plane turned out to be a military aircraft carrying members of the U.S. Army’s Golden Knights parachute demonstration team.
The Golden Knights then parachuted into the Washington Nationals’ baseball stadium, Nationals Park, a little over a mile away from the U.S. Capitol.
The aircraft, a single-engine plane, was reported to be circling around Washington after taking off from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, CNN reported. NBC News added that the Capitol Police did not know that the parachutists would be in the airspace.
Reuters was not immediately able to confirm that Capitol Police had not been informed of the plane and parachutists.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Kanishka Singh in Washington and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Christopher Cushing)
