Someone should kick Louis Caldera's ass!!
It was an image New Yorkers never wanted to see again: a jumbo jet trailed by two fighter jets buzzing dangerously close to the city’s most famous landmarks.
On Monday morning a 747 and two military planes circled the Statue of Liberty and flew close to the World Trade Centre site, causing panic among locals in New York. Residents and office workers evacuated buildings and ran onto the streets, fearing a repeat of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which two hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Centre, killing almost 3,000 people.
But the flyover was nothing but a photo opportunity involving one of Barack Obama’s official presidential airplanes, apparently one of a series of flights to get pictures of the plane in front of national landmarks.
The flyover – carried out with little warning by the US defence department – was branded as “insensitive” by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. President Obama, who was not on the plane at the time, was reportedly furious when told of the flight by White House staff.
Locals – particularly office workers, construction workers and residents in high rise buildings – fled into the streets when they saw the planes, including a 747 sometimes used as Air Force Once, flying as low as 1,500 feet above the Manhattan skyline.
Roy Renner, a construction worker in Manhattan said he feared the worst.
“I was thinking about what happened in 9/11,” Mr Renner told CBS news. “That was what I was thinking about, so I said: ‘look, let’s get out of here’.”
Dominick Caglioti, who works in one of the city’s high rise buildings, told the New York Post he was furious when he found out it was simply a photo opportunity.
"It's so stupid because they tell you about every fire drill, but they didn't tell us about this," he told the paper.
An administration official said the purpose of the flight was to update file photos of the president's plane near the famous statue in New York Harbour.
The official said the White House military office had told the Federal Aviation Administration that it periodically updates file photos of Air Force One near national landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon.
The FAA notified the New York Police Department of the flyover, telling them photos of the Air Force One jet would be taken about 1,500 feet above the Statue of Liberty around 10am on Monday. It had a classified footnote that said “information in this document shall not be released to the public or the media.”
Mr Bloomberg, who was not told about the flight, said had he been notified he would have asked the Defence Department not to do it.
“Why the Defence Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Centre catastrophe defies the imagination,” Mr Bloomberg said. “Poor judgment would be a nice ways to phrase it.”
The director of the White House military office, Louis Caldera, took the blame a few hours later.
“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” Mr Caldera said. “While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”
by Sophie Tedmanson
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6182950.ece
