Military Plane Flying Low over the Hudson River?

[Jeff]

Wait a minute, let's get this straight: Neither Mayor Bloomberg nor President Obama KNEW that USAF fighter jets would be pursuing a mock-up of Air Force One over the Statue of Liberty???

That has to be the most disturbing aspect of the whole troubling event.

[Avalon]

Maybe someone's Photoshop program was on the fritz, so they decided to do a live version instead. You think the WTF? moments can never be topped, yet they constantly do.

I wonder if we'll ever find out where the "Air Force photographers" were.

I don't know how easy it might be to have a gun in one's office might be, but having a crossbow made out of components that individually would be acceptable in an office might not be a bad idea.

[StarmanSkye]

"I don't know how easy it might be to have a gun in one's office might be, but having a crossbow made out of components that individually would be acceptable in an office might not be a bad idea."

WoW -- It just occurred to me -- What IF some well-meaning policemen, after conferring with their dept. supervisor who admits he/she isn't aware of any authorized maneuvers re: a low-flying large commercial airliner flying in low, dangerous circles as if in immanent dive-bomb threat to the city, decide to break-out their M-16 assault rifles with depleted-uranium-tipped ammo and try to heroicly 'defend' their city from a crazed suicide-hijacker.

Would they be 'justified' in repelling an apparant suicide-attack, given the very real tragedy of 911 with its own near-identical 'impossible!' disaster still a potent memory of absolute terror?

And what's with the Mayor denouncing the stunt when the FAA official specificaly said one of the authorities this was coordinated with was the Mayor's office?

Why wouldn't a photo-op simply be done with a small plane or helicopter, instead of a $5000 per hour commercial airliner and 2 Air Force jets @ another coupla thou $ per hour?

It makes no sense;

But then, that's par today, ain't it?

[MacCruiskeen]

Are you really from New York?

You clearly aren't. You think that after 9/11 any real New Yorkers would be flustered by some low flying planes? Been there, done that, baby.

Next time I'll use the green ink, m'kay?

Nomo, you're imagining, fondly, that I didn't consider the distinct possibility that you were being ironical. I did, because it wa only to be expected. You're also ignoring the plain fact that some manifestations of irony are clever, while some are indistinguishable from self-regarding and self-protective fatuity. A postal address confers no particular distinction, in and of itself. I've been to New York and experienced both clever and stupid irony, there and elsewhere.

JackRiddler, for instance, is a New Yorker who knows the difference. (Jack, where are you?)

Anyway, this incident is too bizarre and too serious to allow it to be sidetracked.

[hanshan]

WTF????

White House: No info on Air Force 1 photo-op
26 minutes ago

MacCruiskeen wrote:

Wait a minute, let's get this straight: Neither Mayor Bloomberg nor President Obama KNEW that USAF fighter jets would be pursuing a mock-up of Air Force One over the Statue of Liberty???

Bloomberg and Obama are starting to look like proles and drones themselves.

What the hell is going on there? Who runs your country, and its biggest city? The fucking generals? Or King Dick Cheney?

This is rhetorical, right MacCruiskeen?




....

[MacCruiskeen]

BBC NEWS

Low-level flight panics New York

The White House (an amazingly articulate edifice) has apologised after a low-level flight by a presidential jet and a fighter plane sparked panic among New York City office workers.

The half-hour flight triggered the evacuation of a number of office buildings in the city.

Pentagon officials said the fly past - a photographic exercise not involving President Obama - had been co-ordinated with city and state authorities.

No general public notification was issued in advance.

"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," Louis Caldera, director of the White House military office, said in a statement.

"I apologise and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused." (So exavtly when can we expect your resignation or sacking?)

Correspondents say many New York residents are still scarred by the September 2001 attacks when airliners ploughed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was "furious" about the incident, criticising those responsible for failing to warn the public.

"The good news is it was nothing more than an inconsiderate, badly conceived and insensitive photo op with the taxpayers' money," said Mr Bloomberg. (Ah, that's good news. Business as usual, so to speak)

The Boeing 747 jet is one of two planes known as Air Force One when the US president is aboard.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/a ... 021830.stm

Published: 2009/04/27 21:35:01 GMT

Of course, it's a distinct possibility that both Bloomberg and "the White House" (sic) are lying through their teeth, that they were in fact well-informed well in advance, and that this was a deliberate and successful attempt to further terrorise the population of the world's biggest financial centre (at the beginning of an already very frightening "financial crisis", and with Swine Flu looming) and to demonstrate that this can be done easily and with impunity. Something important has been learned today: You can do almost anything to the proles, and even to the bourgeoisie, and they won't seriously protest.

That knowledge should come in handy in the near future.

America is fucked. Thank you for not smoking.

[MacCruiskeen]

From the BBC article:

The Boeing 747 jet is one of two planes known as Air Force One when the US president is aboard.

So it was in fact Air Force One itself that was being pursued over the Statue of Liberty by USAF fighters. Not a mock-up. The President's actual personal plane.

Hanshan, no, I wasn't being ironical.

[82_28]

Footage of people actually panicking.

http://www.city.com/forums/air-force-ne ... ic260.html

[hanshan]

BBC NEWS

Low-level flight panics New York

The White House (an amazingly articulate edifice) has apologised after a low-level flight by a presidential jet and a fighter plane sparked panic among New York City office workers.

The half-hour flight triggered the evacuation of a number of office buildings in the city.

Pentagon officials said the fly past - a photographic exercise not involving President Obama - had been co-ordinated with city and state authorities.

No general public notification was issued in advance.

"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," Louis Caldera, director of the White House military office, said in a statement.

"I apologise and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused." (So exavtly when can we expect your resignation or sacking?)

Correspondents say many New York residents are still scarred by the September 2001 attacks when airliners ploughed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was "furious" about the incident, criticising those responsible for failing to warn the public.

"The good news is it was nothing more than an inconsiderate, badly conceived and insensitive photo op with the taxpayers' money," said Mr Bloomberg. (Ah, that's good news. Business as usual, so to speak)

The Boeing 747 jet is one of two planes known as Air Force One when the US president is aboard.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/a ... 021830.stm

Published: 2009/04/27 21:35:01 GMT

Of course, it's a distinct possibility that both Bloomberg and "the White House" (sic) are lying through their teeth, that they were in fact well-informed well in advance, and that this was a deliberate and successful attempt to further terrorise the population of the world's biggest financial centre (at the beginning of an already very frightening "financial crisis", and with Swine Flu looming) and to demonstrate that this can be done easily and with impunity. Something important has been learned today: You can do almost anything to the proles, and even to the bourgeoisie, and they won't seriously protest.

That knowledge should come in handy in the near future.

America is fucked. Thank you for not smoking.

Well, MacCruiskeen, it's just business as usual.
What seems to be missing in all the outrage, drama, puffing-up,
& all-'round official malingering is the simple fact (awareness) that
the general population of the U.S are & have always been
the uniformed guinea pigs for whatever program, test,
experiment, trial run, war, etc., de jour. More's the pity. (e.g):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/adrastea.htm

http://www.aches-mc.org/radiation_exp.html

http://www.astronautix.com/chrono/19464.htm

http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/AnthraxGWS.htm

[MacCruiskeen]

There is no way they can not have known exactly what they were doing, and exactly what the effect would be, when they did this.

So why would they do it? (That's rhetorical.)

[DrVolin]

Strategy of tension.

[StarmanSkye]

I can't buy this for one-second -- NObody can be that stooopid:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/ap_ ... ne_purpose
--quote--
Source: White House was updating AF One file photo
AP – In this image taken with a cell phone by Jason McLane, the primary presidential aircraft, a Boeing 747 … By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 48 mins ago
WASHINGTON – An administration official says a presidential Boeing 747 and a fighter jet flew low near ground zero in New York City Monday because the White House Military Office wanted to update its file photo of the president's plane near the Statue of Liberty.

This official said the White House Military Office told the Federal Aviation Administration that it periodically updates file photos of Air Force One near national landmarks, like the statute in New York harbor and the Grand Canyon.

The official requested anonymity to give more details than the official White House announcement that took the blame.

The incident on Monday caused a brief panic among workers, who weren't warned. They recalled the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001
****


I'd sooner believe this, reposted from Huffingtonpost @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/2 ... 91835.html
c/o:Ambientdiscord:
--quote--
Pentagon:

"We need a picture of a passenger jet flying over new york."

"I can make you one in 5 minutes with Photoshop."

"no we can't use proprietary software for government work."

"OK well i can download the Linux version for free."

"I have an idea, take this note to the treasury. We need to allocate $1M to do a study on the best way to do a $10M military exorcise where we fly a passenger jet between the skyscrapers in NY city."

*******

MIGHT this be a covert Mil-Intel psyop to discredit and smear Obama, either as a PR operation or to send a political 'message' to Obama et al., 'don't BUCK us, boy; Go along or we'll smoke you ...'

But I tend to think, the US public were the intended guinea pig suckers for this stunt.

[hanshan]

There is no way they can not
have known exactly what they were doing,
and exactly what the effect would be,
when they did this.

So why would they do it? (That's rhetorical.)

Aside

Outrage is alot like petting

Black humor carries a heavier load






...

[justdrew]

I'm surprised we haven't heard that the photo-op is just a cover-story, really it was spraying some kinda anti-swine-flu-spray (whatever that could possibly be) in New York, and to be effectively distributed, given wind patterns, etc... the spray had to be released along the flight path. Other than photo-op what other cover story could there be for a plane flying there then? Not just any plane would do, it HAD to look like a presidential transport plane to justify the cover-story. What else could it be a cover story for? Could some pilot have actually freaked way the hell out?

Either that or some folks responsible have remarkably poor judgment or were intentionally willfully spooking the hell out of people. but to what end? What are the implications of "air force one" "(looked like) it was going to fly right into wall street" Is it some kind of "Obama threatens to destroy wall street" message? Doesn't seem like it plays to his favor.

Air Farce One

[Avalon]

If the President wants to see the Statue of Liberty up close and personal from above, I'm sure he can do so by helicopter. If Air Force One can be recognized in the same frame as the Statue of Liberty, it is too damned close.