OK, this isn’t meant to be a conspiracy theory thread. I happened to be looking out my window when the military 747 flew by with the fighter jet (I keep hearing there were two, but I only ever saw one fighter).
When it flew by the first time, a colleague and I thought, hmmm, that’s odd – it must be a commercial airliner that screwed up and got off course and is being escorted by a fighter jet to make sure it doesn’t do something untoward.
When it flew by the second time, we though, hmmm, let’s leave the building (we’re on the 12th floor overlooking the river).
On our way east (don’t to get trapped by the water), we asked a couple of the WTC construction workers and they didn’t know. The first cops we asked also didn’t know what was up. Finally, we asked some Port Authority cops and they said it’s apparently an authorized fly-by, something to do with a photo op.
All the newspapers said the same thing. To me, the photo-op seems patently ridiculous. Why not photoshop? Why the secrecy? Why on a Monday when you’ll scare the crap out of a bunch of workers, many of whom were here on 9/11, instead of Sunday when this area is a ghost town? It doesn’t make any sense.
Our theory is that it was a test run to see how they would evacuate the president if things went bad while he was in NY. They chose Monday instead of Sunday because they wanted a regular, busy air traffic day. They made it secret so the “bad guys” couldn’t monitor their techniques and plans and adjust for that in any bad things they wanted to do.
I mean, who can take a photo from a fighter jet anyway? Why not just have a helicopter hanging out in the right place?
As I understand it, the secrecy is because the President was NOT on the plane. Because it wasn’t operating as AF1 there isn’t the level of security normally afforded such a flight and the planes used for AF1 fly unannounced because of this. The police were told about the flight and also told not to release the information.
As to why the government would spend $300,000 on a photo op during a financial crisis you’ll have to ask a President who flew to Denver to sign a trillion dollar stimulus package.
Magiver, I don’t think I understand why there would be more secrecy when the president is NOT on the plane. Taking out a military plane that happens to look like AF-1 would be less “terrorist-like” than taking out a loaded commercial 747, I think.
Well, there were lots of other helicopters in the air before and after the flyby. How many pilots does an F-16 have? I really don’t get how they could take photos through the window of that fighter plane while banking pretty hard, vibrating like crazy, and so on. I guess it could be a specially fitted external camera with vibration reduction and all that. The fighter that I saw was pretty close to the plane, between the plane and the Statue of Liberty anyway. It would only be able to take pictures of the plane and the sky.
Anyway, the whole photo-op thing still seems ridiculous to me – why not photoshop? I guess there was that kerfluffle with an army general or something with a picture in front of a flag that wasn’t there. If a photo-op, why on a Monday, not on a Sunday?
Does the practice-evacuating-the-president theory not make sense?
Not really, no. Why NY? Why evacuate someone by flying them over a populated area? Why need to practice with a 747 and a fighter jet in full daylight?
As to why not Photoshop, I’m sure they were taking video as well. Yes, you could do stuff in editing software but it wouldn’t look the same and there’s always a bit of sensitivity to “faking” stuff. I’m sure the Air Force has planes rigged up to take photos very well; it’s something they do a lot of.
Could it perhaps been training for the fighter pilot? Maybe they are the designated pilot to take down any hijacked/errant planes headed for the city and this was to see just how well they could track and maneuver that close to the buildings.
Obviously that is just my WAG, but it seems to make as much(or as little) sense as anything else. The hole I see in that case is- wouldn’t they then have to test the same maneuvers against each major cityscape?
As a pilot who flies in the New York airspace frequently, I’m rather amused by this whole thing.
Yes, someone in the White House should have realized this little stunt would cause talk. But in the end, it seems to have been a perfectly legal flight operation that may not have required anybody’s permission or advance warning. *
I’ve heard a number of people who are astonished, just as they were when Cory Lidle crashed, that there can be low-flying planes in NYC in the post 9/11 world. Fact is, this happens many times every day. Tour helicopters buzz around the Hudson River and Statue of Liberty all the time. I often fly the Hudson River southbound over the George Washington Bridge, past the Statue of Liberty, over the Verrazano Bridge and then make a left toward Long Island. True, it’s a little unusual to do that with a 747…
I don’t know the exact route or altitudes that they flew. My guess is they were considerably higher than the usual altitudes for the Hudson River route, which would require a clearance into the New York Class B airspace. So I’m sure the controllers new about this.
I imagine most 747s aren’t escorted by fighters, either. Given that there was talk after 9/11 of sending fighters to shoot down hijacked planes if necessary, I can see why that would strengthen the appearance that the 747 had been hijacked by terrorists.
The thing is, I never noticed anyone complaining before about the cost of operating a fleet of presidential aircraft. This $300K, they already spend that much every few days just keeping the 747s operational, and Marine One and what have you. The additional cost incurred due to the infamous photo op is peanuts, relatively.
That said, other countries seem to get by without having fuck-off huge personal jets for their leaders, with the country’s name plastered all over them. Their PMs and presidents often just use aircraft of one of the national airlines. I’m not sure why the US president requires a personal fleet.
It’s certainly worthwhile for the president’s official aircraft to have a metric buttload of high-end communications equipment and provisions for several weeks, considering the military power at his command in the event something really really bad happens.
Just as a strategic mobile command center, I’d say Air Force One earns its keep.
As was pointed out in the news stories on this event, the pilots need to fly the thing to meet their flight-time requirements (X many hours per year at the controls) so they’d be flying it somewhere anyhow - much the same as military SAR teams book some of their required “training time” by participating in actual SAR (rescuing stranded mountain climbers and so on). Someone thought they could accomplish two goals at once and that this’d be a good opportunity to take some pretty pictures (there were also some of AF1 flying over Mount Rushmore, this wasn’t a unique event). So it’s not necessarily true that this was a waste of $300k in operating expenses.
Regarding the escort fighters, what I read the day this happened was that there were in fact two but one of them peeled off earlier. No big mystery.
As far as conspiracy theories go I see nothing. I see a common maneuver that happens often in both the public and private sectors which I will refer to as the Boneheaded Screw-Up. Somebody decides to do something which if it had been repeated back to them in the form of a question they would have realized it was a terrible idea:
“You’re telling me that you want to fly a large passenger jet plus a fighter low over the same area that was attacked on 9/11?”
Or as I try and keep myself in good graces at work, I often stop before I do something big and say “If this doesn’t turn out exactly as I thought it would, would I have any problem justifying my decision to the CIO?”
OK, OK, I withdraw my non-conspiracy theory. Still a pretty boneheaded move, and I really don’t understand the secrecy around it beforehand. It’s not like people wouldn’t notice.
Regarding the altitude, no doubt it’s difficult to judge from a distance, but it sure did look like it was lower than the Goldman Sachs building on the Jersey City side of the Hudson. Next time they want a photo shoot, I say do it on the weekend.