A Boeing 747 used by the president was escorted over lower Manhattan by an Air Force fighter jet Monday as part of a government photo opportunity and training mission, causing a brief panic among office workers near Ground Zero.
Workers from several office buildings poured out onto the streets before they learned that the flights were a planned exercise.
John Leitner, a floor trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange Building, said about 1,000 people “went into a total panic” and ran out of the building around 10 a.m. after seeing the planes whiz by their building, near the World Trade Center site.
“Apparently, nobody in the building was informed that this was going to happen,” he said. “Everyone panicked, as you can certainly understand.”
“The FAA and the presidential airlift group conducted an aerial photo mission” and training for crew members of the president’s flying fleet, said Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Angela Webb. She declined to release any other information about the nature of the photos being taken.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it notified city law enforcement about the mission. The NYPD said the flight “was authorized by the FAA for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty, with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it, but to direct all inquiries to the FAA.”
– – –
MAYOR OUTRAGED
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he is furious that the federal government flew jets near Ground Zero, calling the flyover insensitive. Had he been notified of it by the NYPD, he said, he would have tried to stop it.
