Air Force One Low Flyover Causes Panic In Lower Manhattan
The New York Times reports:
An Air Force One lookalike flew low over parts of [lower Manhattan] on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures.
But the exercise — conducted without any notification to the public — caused momentary panic in some quarters and led to the evacuation of several buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. By the afternoon, the situation had turned into a political fuse box, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg saying that he was “furious” that he had not been told in advance about the flyover. When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious.
[At 1 Liberty Plaza] Johnny Villafane, 42, said, “The plane did a 360. There was a vibration. The glass in the skyscrapers was shivering.” He added, “It sounded like the building were cracking, everything started shaking. I thought the plane was coming down.”
