Posted on 04/28/2009 9:23:47 PM PDT by GVnana
FAA Memo: Feds Knew NYC Flyover Would Cause Panic
Threatened Federal Sanctions Against NYPD, Secret Service, FBI & Mayor's Office If Secret Ever Got Out
Furious Obama Apologizes: "It Will Never Happen Again"
CBS News Interactive: Sept. 11 And Since Reporting Marcia Kramer NEW YORK (CBS) ―
An F-16 fighter jet trails a larger military aircraft over Lower Manhattan Monday, April 27, 2009, conducting a photo shoot that panicked thousands of New Yorkers who believed the city was in jeopardy for another terrorist attack.
Dozens of people evacuated outside 17 State Street after military jets were seen escorting a 747 in Manhattan on April 27, 2009.
A furious President Barack Obama ordered an internal review of Monday's low-flying photo op over the Statue of Liberty.
CBS 2 HD has discovered the feds will have plenty to question.
Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.
In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
Someone big enough to require a fighter escort was on that plane.
Fidel Castro? Hugo Chavez? King of Saud? King of Jordan?
We know it wasn’t Bibi.
when’s the next lecture on fiscal responsibility? I want to know more about this...it makes NO SENSE. WHO WAS ON THAT PLANE? That’s confidential..but memos about interrogation have to be transparent. I swear we’ve all lost our collective mind.
AMEN! ZERO was sending a message to his Muslim Buddies! “Look what I can do at the snap of my Arab Fingers!” and tried to camouflage it as a photo op{*}
LOL! "Furious" my ass. Every media outlet buys this bullsh*t WH story. We all know damn well this was ordered by Axelrod himself for 2012 footage.
Yeah, he's running for re-election to Terrorist in Chief. All his Hamas and Muzzy friends will vote him in -- as long as Soros and the King of Saudi Arabia approve, of course.
That’s it! I’d bet a whole bucket of chicken and waffles it was either Fidel or Chavez!
Something is really screwy with this story. It would be plausible that AF1 was doing some training type of exercise. Many of these excercises are videotaped from a tailing jet, hence the F16. Oh yeah, we would like to take some great pics while we were over Manhatten. This is even plausible. But they haven’t made these reasonable arguments because they are not true. What is the truth?
some speculated it was film for a Spike Lee movie
ZERO DISRESPECTS The Military and ZERO DISRESPECTS AMERICA!!:-(
That is Pathetic! and His Ghostwriter and Close Friend, illiam Ayers, Hates America since before 1970 when He Bombed The PENTAGON an Got Away With IT!
Because both of the AF1 planes are awesomely important security assets, and giving terrorists a big heads up about where either one of them is going to be in the air at a given time creates too big of risk of one of them being taken out, leaving POTUS with no back-up plane in the event of mechanical or other problems with the first one.
But, plenty of information could have been disseminated to prevent panic, without specifying that one of the planes involved would be an AF1 plane. I suspect this may be where the screw-up occurred -- i.e. somebody high up in DoD put out the word that the involvement of AF1 must be kept an absolute secret, and somebody between that person and the few public officials who got any information at all, misunderstood this directive to mean that entire mission had to be kept an absolute secret.
This doesn't make sense -- clearly we're still only getting garbled bits and pieces of the story. The FAA isn't in the business of giving a crap about secrecy of DoD flights -- it simply follows orders re DoD flights. Only the DoD would issue a directive requiring secrecy re a planned flight. The "they" referred to in the above paragraph therefore isn't the FAA -- if any party "demanded total secrecy" it would have been DoD (and possibly also the Secret Service, which may be involved in any use of either of the Air Force One planes). The notion that anyone in the FAA "demanded total secrecy . . . from the Secret Service" re an AF1 flight is too ludicrous for words. Anything that emanated from the FAA to that effect was just a DoD directive being passed along.
And the headline is simply false, at least based on what follows. "Possibility of public concern" is a long, long way from mass panic and building evacuations on the scale of the New York Mercantile Exchange and other large financial businesses. "Possibility of public concern" applies every time a fighter jet passes over the city at an altitude that can be detected by a paranoid citizen with a pair of binoculars. It's perfectly reasonable not to announce such things to the public, and to instruct 911 operators to reassure callers that it's "an authorized military flight".
There are many things that random nervous people call 911 over, that don't warrant advance public announcements. There's no evidence (yet, at least) that anyone involved in planning this flight and related communications had a clue that it would result in mass panic and full evacuations of large buildings by sensible people. And THAT is what we should be really worried about. Because either the people planning the flight are incredibly clueless (and thus shouldn't have authority over any aircraft bigger than a remote-controlled toy model airplane), or there was a serious breakdown in communications between the people involved in planning and the people involved in executing an unusual training mission involving an AF1 craft and escorting F-16s (and that's a pretty scary concept too, given that these would be the same people planning and executing "real" missions involving AF1+POTUS and escorting fighter jets).
"White House Office of Military Affairs"?
Yeah, right. UH-HUH! Does anyone think they could order this by themselves? I don't think BO is behind this, though I wouldn't be suprised. I think it's his handlers, the people who are REALLY running things in this country. BO is just a setup for the behind-the-scenes people who are making the decisions and then telling BO what to say, and I wouldn't be surprised if lovey-wife Michelle is at the top of this pyramid.
Even the press is covering for BO's administration mistakes, as seen by the fact that no one has been asked to answer for this idiocy yet. More than likely, the media are giving BO time to set their ducks up and get their stories straight before trotting the "story" out to the press.
Wouldn't want the pajama-majadeen to find the chinks in the armor before they can sell their "story"!!!
My second thought is that the pilots of both planes used as Air Force One are the most professional and proficient in the world. One wonders what they now know that would cause them to do something so “unprofessional”. They are obligated to follow orders. However, their professional advise and caution was not heeded. To me that means that whomever ordered this exercise was unmindful of what the consequences might be.
Sometimes following orders is what we do when the orders are so insane that we want someone to take notice of the ineptitude and incompetence of those giving them.
If he's gonna be genuinely furious, he should look the part, and not smile while he's being furious. Even the Toon was able to fake it.
You mean the one with “I believe I can fly” and the flyover??? LOL
After 4 years of Obama it will be interesting to see how much Kool-Aid the Obama cult followers will swallow. 2012 is going to be an interesting year..end of the world or not.
Guys, I need some FREEPER advice...
sorry to use this thread, but it seemed like an appropriate one...
Ok, here’s my problem...I am somewhat “condemned” by other Christian conservatives (friends, people I go to church with, etc.)...for making fun of Obama and the dems....I am told (in not so many words)that I should pray for him (which of course I do...Good Lord!)...but they get really offended (not just at me, at others also)if we make a light hearted joke about the size of the stimulus for example...and they tend to be judgmental about it...I believe, with things being so serious that if we don’t laugh SOME...we would go nuts....
What I need is a good freeper comeback...or else I’m gonna get ticked off and spew something unchristian I am afraid...Please help...all you smart and witty freepers!
Sometimes you've gotta laugh to keep from crying.
No kidding for the rumored cost for this being 380K, I could do some top notch 3D CGI work give them a more versatile result. You want Air force One flying above Manhattan at night? Sure. Doing a barrel roll over the golden gate bridge? You got it.
It's a complete steaming pile of bullcrap we've come to expect from this incompetent bunch. I cannot believe for one millisecond that this was so highly classified that even the president was kept out of the loop.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.