Lakeview condo building's windows shattered during Chicago Air and Water Show practice
Three buildings on Lake Shore Drive were dealing with shattered windows on Friday, including all the windows in the lobby of a Lakeview condo building, amid rehearsals for the Chicago Air & Water Show.
Rehearsals have been going on since Thursday, and many Chicagoans – especially those along the lakefront where the performances will take place – have heard the loud booms of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and other planes practicing.
It's something most residents have come to expect every August as the Air and Water show approaches. But what residents have been hearing Friday morning is different than in years past.
Around 10 a.m., the windows in the lobby at 3180 N. Lake Shore Dr. were boarded up after all of them were shattered. The building's doorman said he was in the lobby of the building at the time, when he heard a sound so loud, he thought a plane had hit the condo complex.
"I felt the building shaking first," Timothy Fuller said. "The next thing I knew, the windows just blew open!"
The lobby windows shattered.
"One that cracked. Two that blew open to the left. One person was outside, and I was just in the lobby looking, and it happened in a split second," Fuller said.
Fuller said he's been a doorman at different buildings along Lake Shore Drive for nearly a decade and has never seen planes at Chicago Air and Water Show practice flying so low.
"I don't understand how low they was riding though," he said. "Yes. It never happened before in previous years. It's the same jets I'd assume."
The chairman of building grounds for the building's Board of Directors, who lives on the third floor, also said the planes were flying extremely low, so much so that when his windows shook and he looked outside, the plane appeared to be eye-level.
"They were the lowest I've ever seen it and that probably accounts for why they were so loud," said Wayne Foraker. "This happens every year. A few window rattle. This year it was a little bit stronger because my apartment building, my condo windows have never rattled like they did this year and I felt they were lower this year and I'm on the third floor and that's remarkable because I felt they were flying right above eye level."
The only planes flying in practice for the Air Show at that time were the Thunderbirds.
The windows of the building's lobby have now been boarded up until the glass can be replaced.
Similar blasts were heard and felt along the lakefront as planes for the Air & Water Show took flight during practice. The sounds were so impactful, they broke windows on at least three buildings on Lake Shore Drive.
In addition to Foraker's building, another building on the 3900 block of North Lake Shore Drive had two windows shatter in their lobby; one around noon and another around 3 p.m. On the 3600 block of North Lake Shore Drive, a courtyard window was blown out.
Users on the Chicago subreddit also began posting in the late morning that the planes practicing for the Air and Water Show seemed to be flying too low and at supersonic speeds.
One user said three of their parents' condo windows broke in a building at Sheridan and Belmont, while another said "All the windows in my building shattered."
Aviation experts said it should have never happened, and someone should be held accountable.
"It's likely that the trajectory of the aircraft – the flightpath – was not where it was supposed to be," said DePaul University professor and transportation expert Joe Schwieterman.
In his decades of watching aviation, Schwieterman said he's never heard of anything like this happening during an air show.
"That plane shouldn't have been at that spot to cause this kind of damage. There is some accountability here that has to be explored," he said.
He said the fault possibly lies with the U.S. military. Schwieterman said compression change and supersonic travel can cause this kind of damage, but safeguards should be in place to prevent incidents like this.
"The fact that we had this so close to Sheridan Road baffles me, given that this is well known in aviation that you don't put neighborhoods in harm's way," he said.
An Air Force spokesperson said the Thunderbirds "conducted their standard practice demonstration in advance of the airshow" on Friday, and "A thorough review of the practice determined the Thunderbird jets did not go supersonic at any point during the demonstration."