FURIOUS OBAMA ORDERS REVIEW OF NY PLANE FLYOVER


Witnesses reported seeing a plane circle over the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A "furious" President Obama has ordered a review of the decision to fly a Boeing 747 frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

The review will focus on "why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again," Gibbs said. Jim Messina, a deputy chief of staff, will lead the effort.

On Tuesday, Obama told reporters, "It was a mistake. It was something we found out about along with all of you. And it will not happen again."

Officials said that when Obama first found out about the incident, he was "furious."

The incident has led to a large amount of criticism from New Yorkers and politicians.

After a YouTube video showed panicked New Yorkers scrambling as the plane flew frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, a former Homeland Security adviser questioned whether the man who approved the flyby should remain in his White House office.

Fran Townsend, who advised President George W. Bush for more than three years, called the move "crass insensitivity" in the wake of 9/11.

"I'd call this felony stupidity. This is probably not the right job for Mr. Caldera to be in if he didn't understand the likely reaction of New Yorkers, of the mayor," Townsend said Tuesday on CNN's "American Morning."


The Boeing 747 is used to transport the president but is called Air Force One only when he's aboard.


Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, quickly apologized for Monday's incident after the planes prompted workers and residents to evacuate buildings in New York and New Jersey.

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," Caldera said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption."

The Federal Aviation Administration said the aircraft, which functions as Air Force One when the president is aboard, was taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot.

On Tuesday Sen. John McCain wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying he was "profoundly disturbed" by the flyover "against the backdrop of September 11."

"The supposed mission represents a fundamentally unsound exercise in military judgment and may have constituted an inappropriate use of Department of Defense resources," McCain, a ranking member of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, wrote in the letter.

He requested an investigation into the cost of the flyover.


A New York police official says the department had been alerted about Monday's flight.


Air Force officials estimate that the mission and the photo shoot for the 747 and an accompanying F-16 fighter jet cost $328,835. But they said "the hours would have been flown regardless, and the expenses would have been accrued on a different mission."

An Air Force source told CNN on Tuesday that the White House Military Office planned a photo shoot over various Washington monuments next week, but the shoot has now been canceled.

An angry Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it "defies the imagination" that an agency would schedule the photo shoot so near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the FAA's decision to not announce the flyby "borders on being either cruel or very, very stupid."

Witnesses reported seeing the plane circle over the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty before flying up the Hudson River.

"I'm annoyed -- furious is a better word -- that I wasn't told," he said, calling the FAA's decision to withhold details about the flight "ridiculous" and "poor judgment."

"Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center defies the imagination," he said. "Had we known, I would have asked them not to."

Linda Garcia-Rose, a social worker who counsels post-traumatic stress disorder patients in an office three blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, called the flight an "absolute travesty."

"There was no warning. It looked like the plane was about to come into us," she said. "I'm a therapist, and I actually had a panic attack."

Garcia-Rose, who works with nearly two dozen patients ages 15 to 47, said she was inundated with phone calls from patients.

"They're traumatized. They're asking 'How could this happen?' They're nervous. Their anxiety levels are high," she said.

Garcia-Rose said she is considering filing a class-action suit against the government for sanctioning the plane's unannounced flight.

"I believe the government has done something really wrong," she said.

Capt. Anna Carpenter of Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland said local law enforcement agencies and the FAA had been given notice of the exercise.

New York Police Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said the department had been alerted about the flight "with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it."

this scored high on my lol-meter

I reckon they should be honest and would get a lot less flack had they just admitted what it really was..they were practising for the eventuality incase it ever happened again. No way was that a photo shoot. If they just said 'this is us preparing for your defense' then there'd be no outcry.

Obama: Sorry I didn't appear mad enough about this on Monday and Tuesday. But since I'm still catching shit about this, now I'm FURIOUS!!!

I find it mildly amusing that nobody thinks that Obama and his higher circle didn't know about this. Really? You didn't know that one of your two airplanes was being used for a photo-op that day? Really? Okay.

I find it completely hilarious that you think the President of the United States personally signs off on everything his media people do, but the old President was unaware that crimes like torture and unwarranted wiretapping was being done by the CIA and NSA.

I don't think I ever said that I believed the old president didn't know about torture and unwarranted wiretapping. But, whatever. And do you really, REALLY think that this is purely from his media people? Come on? If there is a national emergency, or a threat to Washington, Air Force one is Barack's ticket out of town. These people always know where those two planes are, and which ones are available in the event of an emergency.

Face it, many people in the know, including Obama, knew that the plane was being used for a photo shoot.

Also unaware of the proper exit.

Oh, so you endorse the breaking of laws including Constitution by the President who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, so help him God. How refreshing.


And you'd be "in the know" to know this?

LW: In the NO.

I don't think I was ever in favor of the wiretapping program. I believe I said on numerous occassions that we should have been able to enact legislation and policies that protected civil rights but expedited wiretapping procedures.

I don't think waterboarding is torture. So I don't know what you're arguing about.

Lastly, you can't even argue your way around this. The Air Force has two planes. One of them is a primary plane, one is a secondary plane. Obama has to know at all times which planes are available and when in the event of an emergency. It's simple common sense, and you can't even argue your way around that. The administration KNOWS the status of these planes. They have to if they need to evacuate the staff.

You want to put your money where your mouth is, tough guy?

interesting take. haven't heard that put forth yet ...

Well it makes more sense than an effing 'photo shoot' story. NOBODY anywhere in the world's gonna buy that

To say nothing about whether I think it is right or not, I don't really think waterboarding is torture, at least, it shouldn't be in the same category as true torture involving physical pain.

What exactly would they have been practicing? Causing a panic? Every other 747 was unavailable that day for this test? They had to use the President's?

Seriously, what was the drill? How to fly low over the New York skyline?

Had they used an ordinary plane of any kind with two fighter jets there would have been REAL panic!

AF1? maybe they thought people would just say 'oh it's the president' and there wouldn't be an outcry..with an ordinary jet it would have been a HUGE story and they couldntve even said 'they were taking photos'
It was a defense rehearsal I'd bet on it.

But what were they rehearsing exactly?

it's fairly simple, they were rehearsing the eventuality of another plane strike. I would have thought that was obvious.

Waterboarding is not torture. It is a means to extract information. Not much different than those sleep depriving all night interogation sessions, or the psychological intimidation of good cop, bad cop or any of the other 101 games played by interogators.

I've seen kids rough housing in backyard pools that used more extreme versions of waterboarding than what was used in these interogations.