The U.S. Army Golden Knights parachuted into Nationals Park for the team’s Military Appreciation Night.

Alex Brandon / AP Photo

The U.S. Capitol Police evacuated the Capitol building yesterday evening around 6:30 p.m. after spotting an unidentified plane flying in protected airspace. The plane turned out to be an Army aircraft carrying a parachute team that jumped into Nationals Park for a pregame celebration.

In a statement, the U.S. Capitol Police wrote that it had not been made aware of the flight in advance, which is “extremely unusual.”

“The United States Capitol Police must make split-second decisions that could make the difference between life and death. The decision to evacuate the campus is not one we take lightly,” the statement reads. “As soon as it was determined that we were not given advanced notice of an approved flight, our officers followed USCP policies and procedures and immediately led everyone safely out of the Congressional buildings. Seconds matter.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blamed the incident on The Federal Aviation Administration’s “apparent failure to notify Capitol Police”, calling it “outrageous and inexcusable.” She wrote in a statement that “the unnecessary panic caused by this apparent negligence was particularly harmful for Members, staff and institutional workers still grappling with the trauma of the attack on their workplace on January 6th.”

While much of the Capitol’s staff had already cleared out for the day, Aaron Fritschner, the communications director  for Northern Virginia’s Representative Don Beyer, was still on the scene.

Eireann Dolan, writer and wife of Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle, tweeted that it was “possibly the scariest moment of my life. I was walking the dogs past the Dirksen Senate Office Building. People started streaming out all at once. They told me to turn around and get away as fast as possible. Some people were calm but many were genuinely panicked. I know I was.”

The plane was carrying members of the U.S. Army Golden Knights, a military demonstration team, who parachuted onto the Nationals’ field for Military Appreciation Night before the home game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command said in a statement that it is “reviewing all aspects of the event to ensure all procedures were followed appropriately to coordinate both the flight and the parachute demonstration. We will not comment further until we are able to determine the facts of the situation.”

For it’s part, the FAA similarly says it is investigating what went wrong.  “The FAA takes its role in protecting the national airspace seriously and will conduct a thorough and expeditious review of the events yesterday and share updates,” it said in a statement. “We know our actions affect others, especially in our nation’s capital region, and we must communicate early and often with our law enforcement partners.”

Speaker Pelosi promised “a thorough after-action review that determines what precisely went wrong” from Congress and to hold whoever is responsible accountable.

The apparent communication blunder also hearkens back to the January 6 insurrection, when the U.S. Capitol Police were woefully unprepared for the rioters who stormed the Capitol. A U.S. Senate committee report found that a variety of federal agencies failed to communicate with each other about the potential threat.

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