B747 and P3 Orion (Sources: armybase.us / White House Military Office)
Previous poor planning and coordination of a flight over New York by an Air Force Boeing 747 (one of the Air Force One aircraft) just caused a cancellation of a legitimate flight in the same area. The situations couldn’t be much different though.
The 747 flew right over the World Trade Center site at 1,000 feet above the ground. Just for reference, the twin towers stood at over 1,300 feet (1,727 including antenna/spire). The Empire State building is 1,250 feet tall (1,472 at spire). So now you can see why people were running for it and thought it was 9/11 Part 2 – if the reports are correct, this Air Force One double flew over Manhattan below the height of the Empire State Building.
It just showed poor taste overflying that site at an altitude that previously would have hit the Twin Towers. The Washington Post reported “The official responsible for the fiasco, Louis Caldera, resigned as head of the White House Military Office on Friday following an internal review that found lax procedures for the use of presidential aircraft.” Lax presidential aircraft procedures? That’s reassuring.
But why would people think Air Force One would be used in an attack? Crazy, right? Not exactly. Back in 1994, author Dale Brown wrote a book called “Storming Heaven”, and on my copy what’s on the cover? No less than an image of Air Force One being used in an attack, which is part of the story. Mr. Brown even wrote in the author’s note: “But the final result, however true-to-life and technically accurate, is fantasy. I hope it all remains a fantasy.” This was seven years before 9/11, excellent book by the way.
But the flight that was cancelled today was of a much smaller airplane at triple the altitude, and over the Hudson River – not over Manhattan. What’s sad is that this was a flight for a retiring Navy pilot in a P3 Orion, which isn’t even a jet, it’s a four engine turboprop, and half the size of a 747. Odds are that if people on either side of the Hudson River didn’t know it was supposed to be there, they’d probably not notice it at all.
And get this from ABC News: “Before the flight was cancelled, city officials had used the city's reverse phone calling mechanism (a system that allows the city to automatically dial a subscriber's telephone during an emergency to alert them) and sent emails through its "Notify NYC" program to alert residents and business in the affected area. The Notify NYC message was later updated to state "the planned military flyover has been cancelled."
It’s ridiculous that those calls or notices had to go out at all involving this particular flight. But because of the previous incident, the New York area is hypersensitive (and understandably so after that nice reminder of 9/11) to this kind of thing. Expect to see YouTube videos of low flying aircraft (that are exactly where they always were and are supposed to be) and exaggerations describing normal operating procedures in and out of the airports in that area. Just what we need.
In case you need a reminder of the previous incident:
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