They couldn’t very well take a picture of the jumbo jet elsewhere and superimpose it on the NYC skyline, could they? I mean, you can always tell when they do that by looking at the pixels.
Unless something amazing comes out, I’m comfortable that this is enough of an unnecessary and significant fuck-up that someone pretty damned senior oughtta be hitting the bricks.
Horrible inexcusably poor judgment.
I was across the country when 9/11 happened. I only briefly saw the footage on the news between classes. And that picture in the article still makes my blood run cold. I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been for New Yorkers. That was just about the dumbest thing anyone could have done.
A bad idea that got clearance at multiple levels? Probably not one single fuck up or one single idiot, but a good example of Swiss cheese theory.
At what point do we seriously have a need for specifically “Air Force One over the NYC skyline” file photos? It’s a fucking 747, it looks like a fucking 747 even if it’s sitting on the ground in a hangar, not wasting jet fuel and not freaking out the general public.
No, but some dick sure is.
I’m seeing a slight disconnect between the WHTA needing file photos for people to look at but classifying the fact that it was going to be flying over a densely populated area where people could have… looked at it.
It’s not a fucking Stealth Bomber, it’s an 800,000 lb. passenger jet.
And surely we are flush enough with cash that the cost of this photo-op is negligible, right?
To the people who don’t see the fuss, you must have never had it happen in your city. To me, the fact that it happened in NYC and post 9/11 is beside the point, buzzing buildings in a plane is beyond stupid and should never be acceptable.
A few years ago we had a jet buzz Richmond at supersonic speed, evidently to hype some show (already a dumb idea). I don’t know whether they had approval from the city or not, but the general working population had no idea it was coming. It’s the middle of the work day and I’m half asleep staring at spreadsheets on my computer (okay, maybe I was reading the Dope). All of a sudden the building starts shaking, there is a sudden huge gust of wind and sonic boom, which stands as the deepest, loudest sound I’ve ever heard. People were scared out of their minds. We quickly figured out what happened, but discussing it with co-workers afterwards, we all were thinking at the time it was some kind of bomb. Even though we didn’t evacuate buildings or anything, nobody could concentrate on work for the rest of the day.
Why is it “dumb”?
Because they jumped to the wrong conclusion?
What if it was another hi-jacking, and they had hung around watching from the windows, until it hit? Would they be dumb then?
Nitpick: only supersonic jets create sonic booms. Unless the F-16s had fallen way behind and were playing catch-up for some reason (unlikely, obviously) you just heard “really loud engines”.
The cost isn’t the issue – they have to fly these planes in escort formation every once in a while anyway, for obvious training and testing reasons.
The issue is that some dipshit decided not to warn people in advance for some moronic reason.
you just skimmed his post didn’t you?
Over lower Manhattan?
I assume they make it back via the sale of postcards, posters, coffee table books and other assorted bric-a-brac bearing the image of Air Force One available at the Air & Space Museum Gift Shop (and a bajillion other places).
There was probably some vague notion of security within the reasoning. Something like “We don’t want to advertise publicly where Air Force One is scheduled to fly.” The idiot who made that decision probably forgot secrecy wasn’t going to be a factor here.
And look at all the free publicity they got for this merchandise.
If the President wasn’t on board it wasn’t Air Force One (as far as I know), it was just another military aircraft. A big one. Still stupid though.
Seems to me there were plenty dipshits.
From the article:
I can sort of understand if the WH guy isn’t from New York and wouldn’t make the connection, but certainly the “local authorities” should have known and given some pretty hard push back.
Good Christ.
Maybe.
:smack: