Count on the present U. S. Administration in Washington to regularly screw up. The White House gang of President Obama decided some new public relations photos of the Presidential Boeing 747 needed to be taken with a patriotic backdrop-the Statue of Liberty on New York's Staten island. Both the White House and the FAA seemed to think it would be neat to fly the B-747 and an accompanying F-16 fighter over New York City, Staten Island and the Hudson River without prior public notice. The FAA in fact had insisted in their infinite wisdom that the operation be "classified". (Is it possiible to conceal a B-747 in low level banking flight over millions of citizens, still in fear after 9/11?).
Predictably, thousands of New Yorkers fled their office buildings to the streets in mass panic exodus at the unannounced aircraft sights. But the white House? Apparently the prospect of triggering panic by flying jets at low altitude above New York City skyscrapers didn't surface in their busy brains. Got to run the country, you know.
When queried, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had no answer initially to a reporter's question. When the news surfaced including near-immediate YouTubes, President Obama then apologized "for any distress that flight caused". Search for the guilty may be underway, but our President needs to rethink taking the war on terrorism seriously and re-examine his attitude about 9/11, as millions of New Yorkers just did, again. It's Obama's war on terrorism now. I doubt that it crossed his mind, but a B-747 can't turn on a dime and give a nickel change, invisibly or inaudibly.