(Air Force One Backup Rattles New York Nerves
(New York Times)
By Matthew L. Wald AND A. G. Sulzberger
Jim Brown
A reader, Jim Brown, took this photograph from 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City, looking toward 77 Hudson Street and the Statue of Liberty. In the photo, the plane appears closer than it actually was.
Updated, 3:37 p.m. | An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.
But the exercise — conducted without any notification to the public — caused momentary panic in some quarters and led to the evacuation of several buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. By the afternoon, the situation had turned into a political fuse box, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg saying that he was “furious” that he had not been told in advance about the flyover and the White House facing questions about it. In unusually harsh language, the mayor criticized the Defense Department for conducting the exercise and the Federal Aviation Administration for being secretive about it.
The flyover, which began around 10 a.m., resulted in widespread confusion and a flood of calls to emergency hot lines. Perplexed officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other authorities were inundated with calls from anxious ferry passengers, office workers and residents.
