The plane landed at Indian Head Airport in Charles County, Md., where airport owner Gil Bauserman said the aircraft had been flying from Maine to North Carolina. Bauserman said the military notified the airport that the plane would be making an unscheduled landing at 12:45 p.m. EDT. The plane landed 15 minutes later, escorted by the F-16s and the helicopters.
"It was just a navigation mistake, the GPS went and the pilot got confused," Bauserman said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"This has happened many times. The restricted zone in D.C., all it does is catch poor innocent people. They've never caught a terrorist, it's just people making a mistake," he said.
The airport, with a runway of about 3,000 feet, is located about 12 miles south of Andrews Air Force Base.
The pilot and his wife were en route to North Carolina to visit the couple's daughter, according to Bauserman.
President Barack Obama was believed to be in the White House at the time. The White House declined to say where the president was, but Obama went ahead with a 1:30 p.m. EDT appearance in the Diplomatic Reception Room to discuss affordable college education.
The Senate was in session, and briefly recessed. The House was not meeting.
Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Capitol's alert level was briefly elevated but quickly returned to normal.
Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said the security measures were taken "out of an abundance of caution."
Across the street from the Capitol, there was no interruption of a House hearing at which former Vice President Al Gore was testifying about climate change legislation.
Authorities have been on high alert for planes entering airspace in and around major government buildings since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
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