Politics | 04/27/2009 2:30 pm
Air Force One Backup Flies Low Over Manhattan, Panics Residents (Video)
© AP
Thousands of New Yorkers had a nightmare 9/11 flashback today when a 747, flanked by fighter jets, flew shockingly close to lower Manhattan at 10:30am. Then, in an odd twist, they were shocked to find the plane in question was a lookalike of Air Force One, the president’s plane.
Surprisingly, the White House was unaware of the flight. Federal Aviation Administration officials said the flight took place so the plane’s staff could take pre-planned pictures of Manhattan. That makes, well, no sense.
Though the FAA insists lawmakers and authorities were notified, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said at a press conference that he had no prior knowledge of the flight. Witnesses who fled their buildings say police officers were just as clueless.
Watch video of the perplexing flight, via The New York Times:
Read more about: 9/11, Air Force One, Low Flying Plane, Manhattan, Mike Bloomberg, New York, News, White House
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Dear Margo: When Dad/Gramps Just Ain't Interested
154 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Tracy…I am so sorry that you had to go through that again. For the FIRST time I am REALLY ANGRY. I make no apologies about this one. I AM MORE THAN UPSET. I am shaking as I type this.
This administrations incompetence and arrogance and narcisissism knows NO BOUNDS!
Obama does not have one ounce of repect for AMERICANS that have gone through one of the worst attacks on American soil of our time. Where was the RESPECT and HONOR for that City and its citizens? That skyline should be respected in memorial…NOT USED FOR A STUPID PHOTO OP.
No, I believe it goes much further….
NO WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT HIMSELF????????????????? WHAT AN UNMITIGATED ASS AND UN AMERICAN PRETENDER TO OUR PRESIDENCY.
HE OWED YOU AN APOLOGY!!!!
No, he can APOLOGIZE TO OTHER Nations BUT NOT TO HIS CITIZENS?
Freakin unreal. ANYONE…ANYONE…ANYONE FREAKIN ONE, THAT IT NOT OUTRAGED BY THIS SHOULD SERIOUSLY QUESTION THEIR SANITY.
I blame Obama! Hell yes he knew.
Louis Caldera is a Clinton re run. Those that actually were contacted about the photo op were instructed to KEEP IT QUIET. How did that help? Those poor people were running for their lives. They were in a panic and chaos was everywhere.
Where is the concer on this site by the radical left for THOSE AMERICANS that THOUGHT that they were going to die? After all 3,000 innocent citizens had before! Isn’t that suppose to be torture now?
Can you just imagine what glee this has sent throught the terrorist community? Oh ya…they watched 9/11 over and over again, being the mass murderers that they are. Now that get to have another big thrill watching Americans run in fear for their lives. UNFORGIVABLE.
I ask for the people here to ask some questions;
Who was on that plane? Where is the manifest?Why isn’t it public knowledge?
How much taxpayers money was used for this stunt?
Also ask yourself this….was it really just a bad idea, or could it have been a message for the enemy? Why would Obama allow such a thing?
How incompetent is this administration? PLENTY. How callous is this President to AMERICAN viciims. PLENTY. Who in their right mind would conceive or approve of ANY plan for ANY reason that would use the NYC skyline and skyscrapers as a backdrop for a 747 and TWO F 16’s??
It appears to be all of the above and more….much more.
Yeah, but when you blame Obama for everything that goes wrong on the planet, it ceases to have meaning when you blame him for anything.
As a former New Yorker who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, but before the attacks, I can tell you that New Yorkers have a really hard time telling the difference between a local and a national story. Why? Because the national reporters live in New York, and when anything happens to them, they think it’s a national story.
This is a local New York story. If it had happened in El Paso or Des Moines, you wouldn’t even be reading about it.
We had a swarm of earthquakes in the deserts that could have injured thousands of people. They didn’t, thank God. But you didn’t hear about it outside California. Why? Because it’s a local story.
I’d advise New Yorkers to learn what Calfornians have known for generations: Bad things happen. Sometimes REALLY bad things happen. You can’t live in fear.
There’s a greater likelihood that you will be hit by a bus tomorrow than that a New Yorker will be killed by a terrorist or a Californian will be killed by an earthquake.
When did Americans — when did New Yorkers — become such wimps!?
Have courage. Accept and understand the truth. The attacks by right wing religious radicals — both Islamicists and Christian nationalists like Sgt. Timothy McVeigh — are not over.
The Muslim fanatics didn’t attack us because they "hate our freedom." Think about it. What nonsense!
They attacked us and will attack again because of our policies: our alliances with Middle East despots like the Saudi royal family and Mubarak and because of our special relationship with Israel, among other grievances.
The goal of the right wing Muslim fanatics and the right wing American fanatics is the same: replacing democracies with theocratic states where laws are based on the Koran and the Bible, respectively.
Bush did not keep us safe after 9/11 anymore than he kept us safe before the attack when he read the CIA report in 8/11 with the headline "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike US," crumpled it up and told his briefer, "Okay, you’ve covered your a**." The only thing Bush can claim credit for in the ridiculously named "war on terror" is being very, very lucky.
That Bush "kept us safe" is just another lie the Bush cabal promulgated to burnish their absymal record and rewrite history.
There were eight years between the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001.
Eight years after 2001 is 2009. Wake up.
Instead of whining and blaming and acting like children,stand up, get prepared. As I’ve said before, it’s a good thing our grandparents didn’t cower under their beds at the threats from Hiltler and Japan the way some Americans do today in the face of the attacks that are surely coming from religious fanatics from overseas and right here in our midst.
Blaming Obama for everything on the planet? Really Rudi? Although I know that you find this hard to take…Obama is not that omnipotent.
Your refusal to see where this man has failed to use good judgement is seriously concerning. You have not had ONE word of compassion for those people. I have FAMILY there that were witness to the panic. It was totally direspectful and shows a woeful lack of forethought of this administration. Just another waste of money for a narcisissitc child.
I hate to break this to you Rudi…but 9/11 WAS A NATIONAL STORY. What kind of screwed up logic denies that one? Save the ridiculous comparisons with which you attempt to demean and belittle these people with. It doesn’t wash.
The Muslims hate us because their religion tells them too. YOU WAKE UP. They hate other Muslims that do not agree with their extremist ideology. GRIEVANCES? What a bunch of BS…it is ALL BASED ON THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
Oh and Rudi…you many think that just because the Liberals have motivated people with their race and class baiting, personal interest agendas that Christianity is dead. You will be one surprised man when it becomes evident that this is not so.
Those " right wing American fanatics" that you like to call other Christian Americans do not have an agenda to KILL THOSE WHO DO NOT COMPLY WITH THEIR RELIGIOS BELIEFS. Big difference there as most intelligent, informed people are aware of.
I just love your little day dreams wherein you are privy to the inner workings of others minds…must be empowering? But, alas…still just a dream.
The fact remains that Bush DID keep this Nation safe. FACT. Hey Rudi! Your 8 yr theory just may prove out…because OBombUs is a weak and inexperinced newbie who is only focused on this money and power grab of the American citizens.
You are right about one thing..we all had better get prepared. You know it too…Obama does not have the respect of these people, they have already shown him that they do not…and you know it Rudi.
You should be ASHAMED AND SICKENED by your last sentence. You have shown just who you are. Good. I hope that many others read it over and over again.
For you to say that those people that were attacked on 9/11 were "cowering under their beds" and to say that the panic that those people in NYC felt…was whining…to say that to run out of a skyscraper was acting like children is DISGRACEFUL.
To say that no blame should be placed…well that is typical of a liberal when caught. But you are right again Rudi…there is danger rigth here is our midst…and your posts are the best example of the hatefilled anti American sentiment that is allowing this Nation to fail.
So we were bombed on 9/11 because Bush was weak and inexperienced?
I disagree with that. I think we were bombed because al Qaeda wanted to undermine our country by terrorizing some of us to the point that we’d betray our own values — like torturing suspects and ripping up our civil rights in the name of "security."
By that measure, bin Laden won. It ought to be easy to find him since he’s probably where all winners go: Disneyland.
Finally, you’re just flat wrong, as usual, about the respect people have for Obama. A poll out today says that a whopping 81 percent of Americans respect our president. That’s everyone but the shrinking 21 percent who aren’t ashamed to call themselves "Republicans," as well as the Aryan Brotherhood types and Klan members who hate the president because he is black.
I lived through the LA riots — when the city burned for three days but there was no 911 to call, no police, no EMS, and we all slept with furniture pushed against our front doors. I also lived through the Landers and Northridge quakes and the hundreds and hundreds of aftershocks. My family and our pets were injured. Walls on my house fell down, windows broke. What I learned from all this is that fear is useless. It gets in the way of survival.
Bush turned the American right into fear addicts.The whining and whimpering is the very definition of "un-American."
Stop wallowing in fear. Be ready for the worst. Face what comes at you. Be strong.
Be an effing American. This cowardice is sickening.
"Cowardice" Rudi…is that really the word that you want to use about that group of people that have experienced the attack and death on 9/11? To say such a thing is despicable and gutless.
Please spare us your litany of "oh so scary moments" that can’t start what many of us have lived through and certainly does not give you the right to demean the people at ground zero. A disgusting display of false bravado is what that is.
Me flat wrong here…hardly. Obama’s "approval ratings" in the first 100 days are comparable to that of Bush’s. FACT. However, Obama’s "policy ratings" are far lower. Another FACT.
You just can’t resist trotting out the race card…your Ace in the hole…is it?
Well let me tell you a story about a real live Racist. A Democrat, a President named Woodrow Wilson, the worst racist of our time. Yep that proud Democrat and leader of the Progressive movement (the very same progrssive movement that Hilliary loves to claim). He took what had been a de segregated Military and with one stroke of the pen, he segregated it all over again. So you can drop the Republican race crud, because it comes back to bite you Rudi.
Bush inherited the disrespect and subsequent attacks that the Clinton administration had fostered with the Mulim extremist. Clinton did nothing when the Cole was attacked, the Trade center. So the spin stops here.
Did that make you feel like a real big boy …telling those people to be "effing Americans"? I assure you Rudi, being an American takes more than damning those that disagree with you, or sitting all safe and pretty behind a computer while other citizens, fellow Americans fear for another attack. Despicable and truly disgusting.
This type of hatred goes beyond politics…but it usually does…and once again you haven’t made any point.
Nor does it seem, that you are capable of giving the least amount of respect to the people at ground zero. In your glee to prove your liberal prowess Rudi, you forget;
You forget that there were all type of Americans and non Americans there that day. They were mothers and fathers, much loved family memebers. Newly weds and young single professionals. All races, all cultures, all political affliations. They leapt from windows to avoid burning jet fuel. They called their families to say their last words. They had just gone to work, living their lives, when in the blink of an eye, hell rained down upon them. Their freedom and their lives were taken that day.
And some of us Rudi, will not forget them.
Perhaps CHENEY was operating that jumbo jet dressed up to look like AF1
And perhaps BUSH only was able to "keep us safe" because his handlers declined to pull off another P NAC stunt! 911 gave them enough " capital " to pursue any and all of their nefarious deeds unfettered and unrepentant! W arrived in office with surplusses and nothing to attend to but the destruction of an egalitarian society and they had a plan for that!
Obama may have to sway to the entrenched cabal that actually runs this nation! Real chances that it’s not the prolitariot!
Read " the Trance-formation of America" and " the Gathering Storm"
Rich gun nuts with meglomaniacal pathologies could actually run more than Fox muse lets on!
I do agree that there should be utter outrage about the air craft buzzing NYC, but like building 7 coming down, I don’t believe you or my own eyes any more!
Yesterday when the WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN Robert Gibbs was asked about the flyover….he didn’t have ANY knowledge of it. He was acting like he had never heard of it. UNBELIEVABLE.
And I don’t believe it, not a word of from his or Obama’s mouth.
Where is Obama? Where is his APOLOGY? No….all he will say, and not the PEOPLE OF NYC is that it was a "mistake".
Oh really? I think not…the footage will run all over the extremist airwaves….could it be seen as Obama’s intent to use the office of President to destroy America as we know it? A symbolic affinity for the terrorist cause? You can be certain that they will read it that way….