Following Up On Air Force One NYC Flyby

New York area newspapers are having a field day with the headlines. The Daily News headlines: Plane Stupid. The Post has Scare Force One.



Mayor Mike Bloomberg was pissed off that the public wasn't notified of the flyby. He said that the NYPD was informed, but was told not to inform the public. The White House has apologized, with the mea culpa coming from the White House Military Liason

The FAA said that only those who needed to know should be alerted to the flyby, which was being done to update file photos of Air Force One near US landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty. The lack of notification sent panicked office workers scurrying for the exits on both sides of the Hudson River as the VC-25, a military version of the Boeing 747, which serves as Air Force One when the President is on board, flew at rooftop levels and swept around New York Harbor to get the photos with a F-16 fighter aircraft trailing.

An F.A.A. memo last week said information about the exercise “should only be shared with persons with a need to know” and “shall not be released to the public or the media.”

The breakdown of communication went deeper. Mr. Bloomberg said he first learned of the exercise when his BlackBerry started buzzing with messages from people asking if he knew what was going on.

“First thing is, I’m annoyed — furious is a better word — that I wasn’t told,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

“Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination,” he said. “Had I known about it, I would have called them right away and asked them not to. It is the federal government, and they can do in the end what they please, but I would have tried to stop it.”

He said that the Police Department and an official in his administration — he did not say who — had not advised him of the exercise.

White House and City Hall officials later said the notice had gone to the director of the city’s event coordination and management office, which handles permits for events like block parties, street fairs and parades. The director, Marc Mugnos, was formally reprimanded for failing to notify his superiors, said a senior city official, who was given anonymity because this was a personnel matter.

As the uproar reached Washington, dozens of officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the Department of Transportation rushed to find out who had authorized the flyover.

The White House did not issue a statement, or a formal apology, for more than six hours. At first, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, dismissed questions, saying: “You might be surprised to know I don’t know of every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it.”

Later, aides told reporters that President Obama was furious about the flyover when it was brought to his attention. The White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, conveyed the president’s anger in a meeting with the director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, who issued the apology.

“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” Mr. Caldera said. “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. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”

It should be noted that New York City did send out two notifications about 20 minutes later via the NotifyNYC email system:

10:36 am - MON, April 27, 2009
Planes over Lower Manhattan
Planes observed flying over Lower Manhattan were part of an approved federal activity.

10:21 am - MON, April 27, 2009
Notify NYC - Notification
Notification 1 issued (04/27/09), (10:20 a.m.)

Planes observed flying over Lower Manhattan were part of a planned Federal aerial activity.

Those notifications should have come much earlier, and would have been far better if they were supplemented with local radio and television reports indicating that Air Force One would be in the region for the photo ops.

Newsday reports that the photo op was done in conjunction with a training mission to save money, but what was so pressing that the file photos needed to be updated in any event given that the Statue of Liberty and Air Force One remain unchanged since the current fleet of VC-25s has been in service since 1990. Let's hope that the Administration doesn't screw up future photo ops in a similar fashion.

UPDATE:
Felony stupidity and crass insensitivity, is how Fran Townshend, who served in the Bush White House described the flyby. She's not alone in describing the flyby in less-than-glowing terms.

Even President Obama has had to agree that it was a mistake. He has apologized for the error in judgment.

"It was a mistake," he said in response to a reporter's question. "It was something we found out about along with all of you. And it will not happen again."

He did not respond to a question about whether the White House staffer who organized the flyover should keep his job.

Obama is once again failing to take responsibility for actions done in the name of the Administration. The buck always stops with someone other than him.

UPDATE:
Do we need more apologies, or just heads on a platter? The FAA apparently knew that such a flyby would cause a panic and the FAA threatened sanctions against anyone who leaked details of the flyby?

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.

What are your feelings on federal officials demanding the NYC flyover be kept secret by the NYPD and the mayor's office?

"To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it's just confounding," Sen. Charles Schumer said. "It's what gives Washington and government a bad name. It's sheer stupidity."

The flyover -- apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs so it would have souvenir photos of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background -- had President Obama seeing red. He ordered a probe and apologized.

"It was a mistake. It will never happen again," President Obama said.

The NYPD was so upset about the demand for secrecy that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vowed never to follow such a directive again and he accused the feds of inciting fears of a 9/11 replay.

"Did it show any insensitivity to the psychic wounds New York City has after 9/11? Absolutely. No questions about it. It was quite insensitive."

These kinds of decisions get the green light from high level officials in the White House. That means that Obama is ultimately responsible for these actions. By the same token, Ray Kelly is out of line for saying he would never follow such a directive again. There could be good reasons not to inform the public of certain kinds of flight activities, but ultimately this puts government in a real bad light that they would not trust the public to know that the White House and the US Air Force were conducting a flyby of Air Force One over national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty.

UPDATE:
Instapundit notes that there are still loose ends, including who exactly was on board the plane and who ordered the flight. I wouldn't be taking the White House word on this, as they're all too likely to evolve their response.

If, as some are suggesting, campaign contributors were on board, the public has a right to know. If the White House wont say, perhaps someone will be intrepid enough to seek out the logs at Andrews Air Force Base where the VC-25s are maintained and based.

UPDATE:
There are reports that the cost for the flight was $328,825. That might be the cost to the taxpayers, but it was hardly the only cost. There was lost productivity at those businesses affected by evacuations in Jersey City and Lower Manhattan, along with the police response and 911 calls that came in throughout the region.

Still, what was so damned important that this flight was kept secret from everyone in the region.

It's not like we haven't had Air Force One come overhead here before.

Joey Devilla, meanwhile, quotes Chris Taylor who seems to have come across a very curious line of questions - why was a F-16 chosen as the platform from which to take the photos, given that the F-16 is normally a single seat aircraft - there is a two-seat trainer version, but the plane doesn't appear to be that version. More to the point, the F-16 was repeatedly shown trailing the VC-25, meaning that they wouldn't be getting the most prominent view of the plane.

They wouldn't be getting optimal versions of Air Force One flying near the very landmark they were trying to supposedly photograph.

Joey explicitly comes out and says what I've been musing on now since the incident; if they wanted the photos, why not make it a mini-air show and attract a huge audience. They definitely would have gotten one, without nearly the amount of grief.

Something stinks rotten here.