The fact that a couple of sonic booms caused the 911 system to be overwhelmed with calls surprises me.
What surprised me about the story was that the two F15s went supersonic (Mach 1.2-1.3) in the first place as they would have to had to have made a visual IFF interception against a slow small moving low altitude float plane quicker if they had flown the profile subsonic. The supersonic pass over Seattle made very little sense if they were indeed meant to intercepting a slow moving low altitude target especially as the F15s would have very little loiter time due to low fuel reserves.
Weird story.
As I understand the story, the F-15s were supersonic prior to reaching Seattle (over Olympia), not over Seattle. Being supersonic would make sense because they were trying to reach the violator in the shortest amount of time. They can then rapidly slow to get in position to VID the target. I'm sure they were able to ID him using airborne radar and then position to VID him, if that was required. As I recall, the aircraft in question was a nonissue by the time the F-15s arrived anyway.
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