On Monday a jumbo jet and an F-16 fighter jet buzzed lower Manhattan without warning, creating a frightening 9/11 flashback for thousands of New Yorkers.
The planes appeared on the horizon around 10 a.m. and sent a chill through the city. Flying in as low as 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet above New York City, they circled the Statue of Liberty before flying over Manhattan, Staten Island and New Jersey.
Before they vanished, hundreds of frightened people had jammed emergency phone lines, and thousands of terrified people evacuated from buildings in the city and across the river in New Jersey.
Mayor Bloomberg was furious with the people behind the military mission, the NYPD officials, and bureaucrats who never told him about it. “I’m annoyed – furious is a better word – that I wasn’t told,” the mayor said. “If I had known about it, I would have called them right away and asked them not to.”
Sources said the chief reason for the panic-inducing flight was to create souvenir pictures of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty to be given out – like a presidential tie clip – to family, friends or supporters.
Louis Caldera, the director of the White House military office who sent Air Force One and the fighter jet on an “aerial photo mission,” got slammed by an angry President Obama.
“I approved a mission over New York,” Caldera said in a hastily prepared statement. “I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”
Caldera did not state a reason for the “mission” in his apology, but he insisted that “federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey.”
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said the department was told of the “aerial photo mission” last Thursday but was ordered to stay quiet about it. But they did alert 911 operators at 7 a.m. to tell callers it was an authorized military mission, he said.
A short time later, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel tracked down Caldera and “relayed the President’s displeasure,” sources said. “The President was furious,” a White House insider said.
