I don't buy this as a disaster quite as much as a sign that Osama won. Americans panic now because of him.

Doesn't that feel good?

Apart from the stupidity of seeing fighters and not knowing what they meant. I'm not sure why this should have been a general secret, but manufacturing outrage is just an ego trip.

I've been sick of this crying for a long time. Because people fixated on horror want to cry until the end of time, they will erect a memorial to which every radical can point and say, "Look what we did to those arrogant Americans, who bought our oil!"

Of course, another meaning will be lost: TSA, millions of New Yorkers don't believe what you're doing is worth a damn.

Not just New Yorkers Rad, the TSA is completely useless

>>At this level of government, you just don't get a pass on making mistakes like this.

Absolutely agree. I don't want to hear any nonsense about pointless scapegoating either - this is about accountability.

Who says this was a mistake?

A mistake implies that at some level there was reasonable and/or pure intent.

This is more like a juvenile joyride in daddy's Porsche. Luckily, they didn't crash into a telephone pole at 100 mph.

This time.

Oh, and Rad - here's a challenge for you. Undergo a major trauma. Then have the scenario that led to that trauma repeat itself. I guarantee you that you never get the reaction out of your system.

What's it cost to run two aircraft like that? Couldn't they have used Photoshop? Incredibly bad judgement.

I also agree with Brian's comment about precisely what provoked fear here - and why.

I don't consider myself an alarmist, but I fully understand why those people evacuated. Watching people leap to their deaths from 110-story buildings because it's better than burning to death tends to be a lifelong bummer. I don't see many people sticking around because of the idea that if they panic and flee, the terrorists win.

At the very least, the people in the buildings should have been informed.

That's my old NYC neighborhood where 9/11 happened. I used to walk through the WTC on my way home from Century 21 (discount store). I went to the hole with Gregg and his brother and his wife, who wanted to see it, but I found it too painful to be there. I can only imagine how people who were there in Manhattan on 9/11 felt, not only in seeing the plane, which had to be pretty awful, but in the cavalier way this guy, representing the administration, handled it.

I had co workers and friends die in the towers! Louis Caldera should be fired as a resignation is too kind. Of course, there should also be a congressional investigation into just what they were doing and whether the President authorized this insensitive, idiotic act.

I'm a little confused about who did what here. The FAA does not have the authority to classify anything, and they would have had to issue a NOTAM to notify other pilots in the area of the operation. The DoD might have classified it, but classifying the existence of the flight would be stupid since you can't exactly hide it, and classifying it and then giving it to the FAA with a "don't tell anyone" note would be doubly stupid. And I think the Air Force unit that is responsible for Presidential transport knows how to plan an operation a lot better than this. And what was the Secret Service's involvement? No one seems to know, at least not from the reports I've seen.

IHMO, there are two possibilities here. One is that this was put togther by some "rogue" outfit in the DoD which didn't know what they were doing. But the other is that this flight had some purpose far more significant than a photo-op. The photo-op thing is a cover story, and the current outrage is serving the purpose of deflecting attention from the real mission.

From reading the Newsweek and Times articles, it seems like word of the flight did get out to the NYC government and the NYPD. Apparently it went no further than that. Does the city government have a way of informing key businesses (like the companies that run the office buildings) of events of this nature?

Even if Manhattan knew about the event ahead of time, it still sounds like a dumb idea. I'm not the first one to bring this up, but am I alone in detecting a streak of amateurism in the current administration's protocol efforts? Silly and inappropriate gifts to foreign dignitaries, bowing to foreign kings, and now this -- doesn't the White House have an experienced person on its payroll who is supposed to think these things through?

Why does a photo need updating? The Statue of Liberty and a 747 look pretty much like they did ten years ago.

A government with this much money to waste doesn't need mine.

Why does a photo need updating? The Statue of Liberty and a 747 look pretty much like they did ten years ago.

A government with this much money to waste doesn't need mine.

I hear you. Besides, an off-the-shelf copy of Photoshop would have cost about what it took to run just one of those planes for fifteen minutes.

I love how this has gone from something initiated by the White House Military Office to something being blamed on the DoD and the FAA.

Was this a New York City only thing? Were there plans to "buzz" other US cities, too? Or does the White House not need photos of AF-1 flying over Chicago or San Francisco?

And whose idea was it that a plane flying lower than 10,000 feet over a major metropolitan area could be kept a secret?

Does anyone else ever speculate that someone else is running the U.S. gov't and what we're watching is some sort of TV reality series?

If this event wasn't weird enough, have you all seen this painting???

It's all like a huge marketing event / psychology test rolled into one!

what cousin dave says makes as much sense as anything else, but I'm going to use occam's razor to slice, and say this is just hubris. The WH wants to do what it wants, when it wants, and they just don't care about anyone or anything else. In this case they just miscalculated the audience, by not thinkin' about them.

Imagine how amazing the photo-op would have been had you publicized it AS a photo op. Told everyone "we are doing this promo piece, and we want you to come see..." There may well have been some that would not have reacted kindly, I'd imagine, but still...

To improve EVEN MORE, you coulda done it on :gasp: a weekend when all the buildings around would have been empty anyway.

I'm going with arrogant vanity, or arrogant stupidity... or both, regardles if it's a conspiracy or not. They just have no class.

"Sure love it if somebody could estimate or find out the cost"

Slashdot (2008) gives an operating cost of $ 27,000 per hour for the Boeing 747-400. You'd have to add more to cover the fighter jets & the salaries of everyone on the ground who was involved in planning this cosmic fuck-up.

Wow, Robert W. that painting is even nastier kitsch than the stuff in the Michael Jackson auction!

http://tinyurl.com/clss4e

Then again - so what?

This was the action of a bunch of people who profoundly Don't Get It.

I happened to click on the YouTube video of people fleeing in downtown NY first thing this morning and I nearly burst into tears.

My sister worked just across the river from the Pentagon and on 911 I was unable to locate her until nearly 6 p.m. that nite. I rang phones off hooks and emailed every place I could think of.

The plane made its final descent as it passed over her building.

No one, anywhere, has the right to put those people through it all again just for their own fun.

It is thoughtless unto cruel unto sick.

Jody,

I'm not at all "offended" by the ridiculous painting but you don't find it extremely bizarre how so many people on the Left, many of them apparently "secular humanists", have established Obama as some sort of New Age messianic figure?

Please don't insult me by suggesting this isn't happening because it definitely is.

I do wonder if the next slip down the rabbit hole will be a new TV show with a Dear Leader theme. Oh wait, we already have that, though they still call it the ABC/CBS/NBC Nightly News!

>>Please don't insult me by suggesting this isn't happening because it definitely is.

No, I wouldn't do that. I see it too, Robert W.
I think they're foolish, give comfort to the loony right & ought to return to examining their potato chips for signs of the holy whatsit.

And it was ever thus...and an excruciating poor taste in art knows no political boundaries.

(I suppose I partly intended the "so what" in the context of Amy's post. This is not a slow news day for ammunition against the new administration!)

New Yorkers may have voted for Obama with their fingers believing, among other things, that he would make America safer.

But yesterday they voted with their feet a resounding "I don't think so!"

The alarmed calls to 911, the panicked evacuation of buildings, the frantic scurrying for shelter proclaim more loudly than words ever could that they do not trust Obama to keep us safe.

I'm not at all surprised by the reactions of the occupants of the buildings over the Air Force One back up flyover... it's completely understandable.
I'm just amazed so many of them still buy into the 'pancake' farce and that nobody has asked any real questions about the collapse of the Solomon Bldg and demanded real answers.
GR

The alarmed calls to 911, the panicked evacuation of buildings, the frantic scurrying for shelter proclaim more loudly than words ever could that they do not trust Obama to keep us safe.

Don't be ridiculous. It wasn't politics. It was the reaction of scared people who watched planes slam into their buildings not that long ago and didn't want to die.

I voted for Obama. "Trusting him to keep me safe" isn't part of the equation. He's not my daddy, scaring away the bomb-strapped monsters under my bed. It's damn hard to stop people who are willing to die to kill you. (For the record, I never blamed Bush for the initial attacks, either.)

OK, Brian - and others, unnamed. Start crying, and keep crying. I bet there was a bully in school. Don't forget what it was like to be a victim. Remind yourself every day.

If you are mugged, shot or raped, you're worth exactly what you advertise afterwards. You will always be worthless if all you do is cry about it and tell people how big a victim you are.

Go look at a cancer survivor, the winner of a gunfight, the soldier missing limbs who goes on. Are they petrified? No.

----

On another front: aircraft operators are flatly not permitted to park their plane and credit it as airworthy just because it stays in the hangar.

I'm still disgusted that people in full view of the plane couldn't a) see what it was (and, BTW, it's NOT Air Force 1 unless the President is aboard), or b) understand that running from it is useless. It's a primitive and thought-free thing to do.

Some guy was on 20/20 the other week explaining just how 80% of the public waits to be told what to do, and 10% habitually chooses the worst thing possible in case of a disastrous event. Here's the lab test.

Now, get mad. That'll help a lot.

>>I'm still disgusted that people in full view of the plane couldn't a) see what it was (and, BTW, it's NOT Air Force 1 unless the President is aboard)...

You're pissed off because most people are lousy plane spotters!?

Rad -

There's nothing on the plane that indicates that it is a presidential plane. In fact, it's just another military aircraft, that happens to be a 747 as well.

WHICH DOESN'T EXCUSE FLYING THE FUCKING THING AT 1000' IN A FLIGHT RESTRICTION ZONE.

Your big-man "get over it" bullshit is not even in the right book, never mind on the right page.

If someone is still cringing every time someone walks by because they got a wedgie in high school, then yeah, there's something wrong with them.

But if you're in a city where planes typically don't overfly, and where even those that ARE allowed aren't flying just off the deck, AND that plane just happens to be being followed by one or more fighters, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION IS?

It isn't "oh, it's just a plane".

No, the logical conclusion is "What the fuck is a plane doing here? I better get my ass on the ground before it hits something!"

And if you lived in NYC, whether you lived through 9/11 or not, if you had you're little "grow a pair" attitude, you'd probably be avoided as someone with insufficient self-preservation impulses.

In short, fuck you.

'Go look at a cancer survivor, the winner of a gunfight, the soldier missing limbs who goes on. Are they petrified? No.'

Sorry, but baloney. They may not be petrified 24/7 but you cannot tell by looking at them in the street that they never have frightened moments. Fear that the cancer has returned,nightmares of the gun jamming. You can keep telling yourself that it's lesser beings who react like that, if it makes you feel better, in the hopes that you never will. However,it's too hard-wired, it's absolutely out of your control.

I was in the '95 quake in Kobe. Until then we'd had quakes before, but only as big as a 3, and just little rumbles, so I never cared about them at all. Well along comes a 20-some-odd-second 7.2, one whole neighborhood's on fire, trains derailed, apartment buildings toppled across roads, and 700 aftershocks of 4 and over in the first 72 hours. 6,000+ dead,including a couple of dozen people we knew, children among them. Changes your perspective a mite......and believe me, it's etched in the lizard brain from then on in. The reaction becomes lessened over the years, but it is never quite extinguished. Such and event becomes A Thing To Avoid, an automatic reaction as much as pulling one's hand from a flame.

At first it's a full on reaction, sweating, pounding heart, full fight-or-flight. Now, it's that lull in conversation, that 3-5 seconds when you're making sure it really is a dump truck coming down the street and not a P-wave with something nasty behind it. I do not think of myself as a victim, 15 years on I don't think of the quake that often. However, the pause at any very low rumble remains.

'I'm still disgusted that people in full view of the plane couldn't......... understand that running from it is useless. It's a primitive and thought-free thing to do.'

You are reacting like someone broke wind at a lawn party. An embarrassment occurred. Primitive, yes! It's called survival instinct, and no, thought isn't involved. Taking time to think can get you killed...there's a reason we're wired as we are. And it's not to look cool.

BTW, it's NOT Air Force 1 unless the President is aboard)...

We've all seen the movie.

No, it's not Air Force One until Barry's aboard. But it's not used for much else (except photo ops, smuggling Cuban cigars, the occasional send-the-vice-president-to-a-funeral excursion, and, now, terrorizing New York City).

So, you can forgive most people if instead of calling it "one of those two Air Force One planes" or "one of the presidential planes," they simply call it "Air Force One."

And, yes, the two planes maintained by the USAF for the president's use do have a distinctive paint job along with a presidential seal.

Still, if you've got a big plane buzzing your city, are you going to get the heck out of your skyscraper, or grab the latest copy of Jane's and a pair of binoculars?

And hijacked terrorist attacks aren't the only way planes fall out of the sky in New York.

So whenever you see a jet liner low and slow and not on approach, fear is the appropriate reaction.

I'm just amazed so many of them still buy into the 'pancake' farce and that nobody has asked any real questions about the collapse of the Solomon Bldg and demanded real answers.

Take basic physics, then read the NIST Report and get yourself educated.

Gravity is a master who will not be refused.

Those who cannot grok this in its fullness are easily led by glue-huffing "truthers".

There is no "pancake farce". There is only Newton's First Law of motion. "An object in motion will tend to stay in motion."

This is amateurism to the nth level and this is the only 100 first days...

Update on the cost to taxpayers: $ 328,835.00

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHJlkHaApn4o&refer=home

I understand fear, and I deplore it.

You're afraid of an airplane. An airplane, because Osama won, and taught you to fear them. Stand in line to be strip-searched, too, because you want to ride on one. Osama wins every time an American passenger takes off her shoes.

You're afraid of everything, because you've been convinced that everything unusual will kill you. A high-school kid who takes a disabled but real M-14 to English class to perform a speech would petrify you today. It wasn't an issue at all in my class, and the "reasons" are many, and largely fallacious - but my audience hadn't been taught to be afraid of me, and afraid of themselves.

And I see you got mad, too. That helped every bit as much as I thought it would: not at all.

You'll lash out at me because you don't want to admit your fears. Oh, look, somebody has blamed the President already. Can it be clearer that the President cannot control every aspect of American life, regardless of who is in office?

Ahem. Fighters following a jet means it is permitted to be there. By the time you on the ground saw the plane, the time for fear, even had it existed (and it had not) had already passed.

So all that is left is anger. Our ego has been insulted! We must have revenge now! Nothing happened!

Fear and anger in the face of the unusual makes you incompetent to do anything but run on your own two feet, and you won't do any thinking at all while you run. If this were election day, you'd pull the wrong lever somewhere because of this, and you know it. This is the political purpose of terrorism: stopping you from thinking. It always has this purpose.

Don't get caught up in the "two wrongs" fallacy, either. Not anticipating public fear is, indeed, a failure on the part of the flight officers. That's a different issue than the existence of cowardly people. (Oh, you didn't!)

Excuse me. I have to get to work. If I seem callous, maybe it's because my office is literally 200 feet from Tank 35, which now contains a little under 9 thousand tons of radioactive waste. That's just a statement of fact. So is it that the National Guard runs attack helicopters over my house a couple of times a year. They're fascinating.

I can still be scared, just not by big aluminum bird in sky.

Meanwhile, I suggest that the White House direct two more flyovers, widely publicized. Hey, Mr. President, here's the fastest way to snuff this issue - unless, of course, you want to feed fear some more, to increase official grip on the public. Somebody should show the public that American airspace belongs to us. Imagine buying the idea that there should be a place the President's plane can't fly!

You buy that, though. Don't you?

Ahem. Fighters following a jet means it is permitted to be there. By the time you on the ground saw the plane, the time for fear, even had it existed (and it had not) had already passed.

Tell that to the asshole that stole the single-engine plane from Canada and had a pair of F-16s tailing him until he landed it in Missouri to go get a soda.

I can still be scared, just not by big aluminum bird in sky.

No, according to you, your superior mental acumen prohibits you from exhibiting fear.

Meanwhile, I suggest that the White House direct two more flyovers, widely publicized. Hey, Mr. President, here's the fastest way to snuff this issue - unless, of course, you want to feed fear some more, to increase official grip on the public. Somebody should show the public that American airspace belongs to us. Imagine buying the idea that there should be a place the President's plane can't fly!

THAT WAS THE MOTHERFUCKING PROBLEM IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE!

If they had been publicized, nobody would have freaked BECAUSE they knew it belonged there.

You can't read the text on the side of a plane when you're underneath it.

Christ. Crid think's I'm the Internet Tough Guy?

You buy that, though. Don't you?

No, and for a number of reasons I don't have time to get in to.

If this were election day, you'd pull the wrong lever somewhere because of this, and you know it. This is the political purpose of terrorism: stopping you from thinking. It always has this purpose.

Actually, no. I always vote against the Democrat. And the only time I vote for the Republican is if the Democrat has a good chance of winning.

Terrorism hasn't stopped people from thinking. It's made them think things they never wanted to think. Like, for instance, "Hey, there's motherfuckers out there that want to kill me for no reason other than I exist."

Oh, and I think that prior to 9/11 if a 747 had buzzed Manhattan, people would have freaked. Flying such a large plane in such proximity to such large buildings has a probability of the two trying to occupy the same space.

As a man versed in physics, I'm sure you can appreciate the finer points of the difficulties such attempts can have on matter. Unlike the rest of us morons, who you seem to think believe that a 747 can just pass through a building unharmed.

Blisteringly good comment, brian.

>>By the time you on the ground saw the plane, the time for fear, even had it existed (and it had not) had already passed.

That wasn't the case on 9/11.

"Ahem. Fighters following a jet means it is permitted to be there. By the time you on the ground saw the plane, the time for fear, even had it existed (and it had not) had already passed."

Did someone cover this? That fighters are exactly what you would expect to see following a plane that was NOT supposed to be there. Stupid, really stupid. Why the privacy?

For those mocking the people who were scared, how do you think Obama would feel if someone decided to buzz the white house lawn while he played with that stupid puppy, without advertising the fact in advance? A little fear, perhaps?

Radwaste, I bet you're the kind of guy who tells grieving parents, "Quit yer bitchin'. Your kid's been dead three whole years already."

Monica, not the case at all. Bet away. Make up what you need to make up.

One of the rock-hard rules of warfare is that you do not fight the last war or the last tactic. People on this very blog have noted that looking for boxcutters is a total waste of time. Commercial pilot Patrick Smith says that repeatedly. And he can still do what he wants with his plane. What now? Complete, gibbering agoraphobia?

Perception - totally WRONG perception - is what is going on here.

Where do you think Sully was flying? Where do you think LGA and Newark aircraft are? An airliner is less than two minutes from NYC at all times.

If you want to be afraid, enjoy being afraid, revel in being afraid and just generally can't get enough fear, this just isn't the place to do it.

No, fighters which are escorts mean the pilot is doing what he is supposed to be doing. THINK!

"No, fighters which are escorts mean the pilot is doing what he is supposed to be doing. THINK!"

DO tell how the average citizen would know the difference between an escort and otherwise? And the difference between a voluntary escort, and fighters "escorting" someone in the very wrong area? Is there a sign? Something like the used car pennants that prop planes are paid to trail sometimes?

You can feel superior all you want on this. I imagine people who lived through the worst terrorist attack on US soil-accomplished with planes-have a right to fear a plane where one generally should not be in their airspace. Again, much like I imagine Obama would, in his airspace.

An airliner is less than two minutes from NYC at all times.

Not flying at rooftop level, though.

No, fighters which are escorts mean the pilot is doing what he is supposed to be doing.

Since, in general, the USAF does not dispatch fighters to trail commerical airliners doing what they're supposed to be doing, seeing fighters trailing what appears to be a commercial airliner would raise concerns for most people.

Since military personnel must obey the rules of engagement which limits their ability to simply open fire, it is not inconceivable that the fighter pilot was trailing a rogue aircraft while his superiors back at the base tried to contact it and debated whether to shoot it down over a populated city or wait it out.

THINK!

Rad -

LaGuardia is 10 miles straight-line from Ellis Island. JFK and Newark are farther.

This plane was at 1000' OVER JERSEY CITY.

I'll have to ask my pilot friend about flight restrictions, but I know that there are several in that area.

So, yeah, there's planes less than two minutes from New York Harbor. 1000' is A COUPLE SECONDS.

Sully was where he was because he was trying to land a wounded bird. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been over the Hudson at all.

And it was pretty obvious to everyone who saw it that the plane was going down.

Which is why people might get a little freaked out about a plane being that low over a populated area.

Because they remember the one that went down in Rockaway two months after 9/11.

But you keep consoling yourself that there's no reason to fear a jetliner that low over a populated area. We'll keep our eyes out, because sometimes gravity wins.

"Otherwise, he wouldn't have been over the Hudson at all."

Well, this is false. Departures go that way. His departure went that way. Airliners.net has hundreds of photos which prove that commercial jets are within three miles of Manhattan at all times.

Thanks for the Rockaway crash reminder. There was no way for anyone to prepare for that crash because its location was unexpected.

Make me a list of targets in NYC. Then, make me a list of the ones a nut - who pretty much has to be the pilot - can reach. If you assume that escorts are useless, which is really something else you should be thinking about if you claim that shoot orders have to go through a debate class first, he gets to where he wants.

Now - just how do you get "away", when you don't know where "away" is?

Running, and squealing when you're reminded how things went before, don't do anything in a lot of cases. This was one of them.

Nobody was afraid on 9/11 because they were used to the idea of aircraft everywhere (and they still are). Tales abound of people who could not believe anyone would fly a plane into a building. 9/11 "truthers" are still lying outright about how WTC buildings came down, trying to deny the ease with which destruction was accomplished. Tales abound now of the feelings (gee, here we go about feelings again) of helplessness on that day.

Guess what? Feeling helpless isn't fixed by whining about what happened, replaying the horror in your head or by doing something to keep you busy so you don't think about it. It's fixed by putting measures in place to keep it from happening. This does not include prohibiting flight anywhere. Flight restrictions which appear in Notices to Airmen are just like laws: habitually law-abiding people obey them, and the idiot and the thug ignore them.

Hey, here's some more stuff to worry about:
1) People keep building in CA, despite the near-certainty of devastating earthquake and a total inability to deal with it when it comes.
2) At sea right now, there are ballistic missile submarines - because there are still serious enemies to be discouraged. I served on one 20 years ago. Just five guys are needed to launch a first strike; another 20 or so could stop a launch, but they have to know the order was bogus. Russia, China, France, Great Britain have these boats. Our boats won't kill just a block of people downtown. A hundred cities would disappear - if just one boat fired. We're counting on their humanity, and senses of duty and justice.
3) Right now in your neighborhood, and generally wherever you go in the city or township, you are near a concealed carry permit holder, who has a gun on his or her person. Above the permit process, in which a lawful carrier has to prove himself to a variety of agents, there are exactly two reasons it's concealed: to keep its location a secret, making the gun more effective, and to keep people from panicking. You've been told that everyone who holds a gun without wearing a uniform is a criminal, and you've been shown that the uniforms carry criminals, too, so you'll freak out, defeating the holder's intent of self-defense.
Yet, wow - the overwhelming outcry about guns is not criminal possession, but how many law-abiding people have guns. Are you twisted by this? You should be.

Back to the plane: an airliner? That's right there, people can see it, some people remember how it went last time, people know they can't do anything about it, so they run. Without having anywhere to run to.

Fear isn't honorable or respectable. It's understandable and it's unwarranted, because running isn't the solution it used to be.

Here's more hysteria.

Squeal!

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