The U.S. Capitol Got Evacuated Because Of Miscommunication Over The Nationals Pre-Game Army Parachuters

Around 6:30 p.m. ET, there was considerable alarm in Washington, D.C., as Capitol Police announced they were evacuating the U.S. Capitol complex due to “an aircraft that poses a probable threat.”

As everyone at the Capitol building evacuated in a hurry and the rest of the country waited with baited breath to find out if there was an attack of some kind or what was happening, the Capitol Police quickly announced there was no threat to the Capitol and that the evacuation order, which was out of “an abundance of caution,” was no longer in place.

That led to plenty of questions as to what happened, and it turns out the culprit was the plane full of U.S. Army parachuters circling downtown Washington ahead of a jump into Nationals Park ahead of Washington’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Meanwhile, folks at the Nats game all knew what was going on and were happily watching the parachuters glide into the stadium while chaos ensued down the road at the Capitol.

It is an all-time misunderstanding and, luckily, it didn’t lead to anything disastrous. As some reporters noted, the fact that jets weren’t scrambled immediately shows that on the military side, they seemed aware of what was happening — which makes sense being they were Army parachuters — but clearly somewhere along the way the Nationals forgot to inform all the authorities they needed to and the Capitol Police were understandably concerned about a plane circling overhead.