Plane stupid: Mayor Bloomberg outraged over military photo-op involving low-flying presidential jet
By Frank Lombardi and Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Monday, April 27th 2009, 2:54 PM
New Yorkers got a scare Monday morning when a low flying airliner buzzed over the city, trailed by an F-16 fighter jet, as part of a military photo-op.
A huge mistake. The military should have cleared it with NYC officials first.
New Yorkers get airliner scare
Mayor Bloomberg went ballistic Monday after the U.S. military - without any warning to the public - buzzed New York City with one of the presidential planes trailed by an F-16 fighter jet.
Flying in as low as 1000 feet to 150 feet above New York City and taking photographs along the way, the planes circled the Statue of Liberty and flew over Manhattan, Staten Island, and New Jersey - then vanished.
Before they were gone, hundreds of frightened people had jammed the emergency lines, thousands of terrified people evacuated from buildings in the city and across the river in Jersey, and many New Yorkers had flashbacks to the 9/11 attacks.
"I didn't know what was going on," said Eunice Davis, 41, of Brooklyn, who was evacuated from the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Some planes were circling the building. I was afraid. I was here when the World Trade Center went down."
"We thought we were under attack again," added a shaken Wall Street worker, who declined to give his name.
Angry that an unnamed but "dumb" city official failed to notify him of the Pentagon's plans, Bloomberg said a flyover so close to Ground Zero was insensitive and showed "poor judgement."
He said the first he knew of it was when his BlackBerry began buzzing.
It "defies the imagination," said Bloomberg, who insisted he would have tried to stop the shoot had he known about it.
The NYPD confirmed that it had been told of the Pentagon's "aerial photo mission" last Thursday but ordered to stay quiet about it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer called the whole incident "absolutely outrageous and appalling."
"To think that the FAA would plan such a photo shoot and not warn the public, knowing full well that New Yorkers still have the vivid memory of 9/11 etched in their minds," he said.
"In New York, of all places, to not warn the public that one of the largest jets in the county tailed
by a fighter jet is going to fly low over their communities defies logic and borders on simply being cruel."
Asked about the incident, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said only, "I have no information beyond what I saw" on news reports.
The flyover was staged by the people whose job it is to protect us from terrorist attacks.
The bigger plane was one of the customized Boeing 747s that serve as Air Force One when the President is aboard. President Obama was not on the flight.
"This was a planned, pre-approved military flight over New York to take photos," said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "It was pre-coordinated with everyone involved, including the city."
The planes flew back to Andrews Air Foce Base in Maryland after scaring New York.
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