White House Apologizes for Air Force Flyover
By A. G. Sulzberger AND Matthew L. Wald
An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.
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.
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A group of financial services workers, who were gathered outside the same building but declined to give their names, described their reactions. “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Another said: “There were people in my elevator, sweating and shaking. There were women
crying. It was not an experience to be taken lightly.”
Andrew Burke, 49, a T-shirt vendor from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said: “People panicked and ran into the streets thinking the worst.” He added, “It’s a real shame they couldn’t tell the city what they were going to do.”
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