Air Force One Flyby Causes Brief Panic In NYC 898
pdclarry writes "A Boeing 747 that serves as an Air Force One backup and two F-16 fighters escorting it caused a brief panic among office workers at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan this morning, as large numbers evacuated the buildings. The incident was also spurred evacuations in Jersey City across the Hudson River from Manhattan."
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't check either box... and the only people I'm afraid of are the people that did.
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not if it was painted like Air Force One...
Re:Sounds silly, but is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Disrupting the structural integrity of the 747 so it became lots of little pieces of 747 would greatly lessen the damage it could do to a building. The engines and other large chunks might cause a few people to have a very bad day but the building would be fine.
Re:We are a bunch (Score:5, Interesting)
For posts like this, +5 just isn't high enough.
Makes me wish for a logarithmic mod scale....
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
No kidding. The ONLY reason the 9/11 hijackings worked was that it had never been done before. Every previous hijacking was only to get money, or to exchange hostages for political detainees or pizza and beer or even just a "free" ride to $foo, or whatever the hijackers wanted. It was never about using the aircraft as weapons.
Israeli intelligence was sent to warn US officials several days in advance and they ignored the warnings. They simply didn't believe that such a thing would be attempted.
The passengers sat and took it, because previous/conventional wisdom has taught us that a hijacking results in an adventure. One's vacation might be extended a few days, one night unintentionally end up visiting another country, and ultimately the passengers would end up with a ton of free tickets/flyer miles and 15 minutes of fame doing the talk show rounds.
That was the ONLY reason passengers didn't fight back in the first two aircraft hijacked, and that was the only reason US officials didn't believe Israeli intelligence, or even their own. It had never been done before, and it was completely unthinkable.
So now, the ramifications are a knee-jerk reaction which hasn't let up yet. Even though passengers would never, ever allow a repeat one can't even bring a fucking bottle of water on a plane, all under the premise of safety when really it is only APPARENT safety, since the ter'rists would not even attempt the same thing again, because they know they'd not succeed; they would die for NAUGHT, and would probably die a very excruciating death as passengers literally tear their limbs off. I know were I on such a flight I would be that vicious; I'd be informing the would-be terrorists that they're going to be meeting satan in a few minutes and make sure they experience far more pain than they intended to cause. Does anyone have any bifocals? Broken in half those would make a create knife for cutting off would-be hijackers arms. Slowly. Anyone have a ham sandwich? Shove ham down their throat - or hell, disembowel the fuckers and toss a bunch of pork bologna where their entrails used to be, while they watch in horror. No, passengers wouldn't let it happen again, and the terrorists know that. They know they would die extremely painfully without accomplishing a damned thing other than pissing people off enough to kill them slowly and painfully.
You're right. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event and it will not be repeated. They are far more likely to infiltrate our very loose southern border (why on God's green earth is the Canadian border more secure than the Mexican border?!?!?!) and bring dirty nukes or biological agents in that way and poison our water systems or use other means to create mass hysteria.
Re:We are a bunch (Score:1, Interesting)
Right, and you think that if the plane was a real threat that those F-15s would've let it *anywhere near* Manhatten?
No. These people need to get a grip.
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, the odds are very, very low... but as a jetliner gets closer and closer to your building, the odds go up.
And here's the thing... even if the odds are still very low, the penalty for failing to act is very high.
Therefore, taking action becomes an intelligent thing to do.
This was not 'any random jet'. This was a jet that was flying under 1000' feet within easy distance of lower Manhattan.
And one final note -- as for odds: why are the odds so low that the events of 9/11 will not happen again? If I were a terrorist, and I REALLY wanted to strike fear into the hearts of Americans, I'd try to figure out a way use the same method to attack. That would really say something to Americans, I think, if they were already alerted to a threat vector but were unable to prevent it. The expected payout from a successful attack by that method increases the likelihood of it being used again (though the safety measures put in place reduce the likelihood).
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because you do not think a terrorist will takeover a plane and crash it does not mean you do not have a drunk pilot or a suicidal pilot or maybe a disabled plane. You also have to take into account that 9/11 happened in New York.
That would be why the jets are there. I'm fairly certain that they'd have disabled the jet *long* before it got to NYC if they were off-course, had no permission to take off, etc. After all, 9/11 happened in NYC. Thus, if a jet's flying along happily, being followed by 2 F-16s, there's not likely to be an issue. It'd only be a situation if the jets were doing manuvers, or if the plane was acting funny. And about 10 seconds observation would let you tell that.
So yes, either the people overreacted, were dumbasses, or as others have suggested, wanted time off. Many people have just thrown their brains away when it comes to stuff like this. "OMG! IT HAPPENED BEFORE IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN I GOTTA MOVE!" If they're that terrified of being a target, they should move. It's their location, not them personally. But since they haven't moved, on some level, they _know_ an incident isn't likely.
Frankly, if this happened anywhere *but* NYC, I'd be more charitable to the people who evac'd.
As a general aviation pilot... (Score:2, Interesting)
As a general aviation pilot (I'm a regular guy who flies 2-seat Cessnas and other small aircraft on weekends for fun), it's refreshing to see that the double standard for military and VIP aircraft isn't universally applied. I've had more than one lunchtime conversation where someone loudly swears up and down that a 2-seat Cessna 152 is a WMD -- despite only weighing around 1300lbs, barely being able to carry two people, being able to cruise at 110mph on a good day.
Anyway, I can now enjoy a little schadenfreude, while I welcome the presidential airlift crew to my world. Granted they were joyriding in an airliner (which weighs 735,000 pounds and travels 600mph, which can carry 1423 times the kinetic energy of the little Cessna that I buzz around in) with a couple of fighters jets (which are threatening in any circumstances), which is a formula that has a proven track record as a threat to national security... So what they did actually matters! But now they can feel a little twinge of what I've had to go through these few years.
Even though my airplane is around 1423 times safer (based on k=mv^2) for the people on the ground, I have to put up with the same magnitude of hysteria as these people.
And, no, I don't fly very much anymore -- it's just not as much fun as it used to be with the TFRs, fighter jets, and general martial-law in the sky. Maybe I'll try hang-gliders or paragliders in order to address my deep need to get my feet off of the ground now and then.
Re:Overreacting, but not very bright to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We are a bunch (Score:3, Interesting)
You've never tried texting on New Year's Eve. Many of those texts don't go through for hours.
FWIW: I work for T-Mobile in an engineering capacity. I know of what I speak.
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I work downtown on the edge of Battery Park on the 7th floor of this building (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=eXt&q=17%20state%20street%20new%20york%2C%20ny&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl ) and saw the whole thing. Here is what was seen by me as an uninformed observer:
A *really* low flying plane is flying over New York Harbor. The airspace there is very restricted, and you will see helicopters, very light planes like cessna's and the occasional vintage warbird during fleetweek flying below building level, generally at a low speed conducive to sightseeing, but most planes and specifically commercial planes stay way up in the sky. It is EXTRAORDINARY to see a large jet that looks like a 747 anywhere in the vicinity of New York Harbor at an elevation below 3000 ft, let alone 1000 feet. It also appeared to be going full speed. When was the last time a low flying plane at full speed was seen in NY flying below the height of skyscrapers? Oh... yeah...
Anyway... just as the thundering sound of the engines was heard, confirming audibly that this is NOT a normal event, what do I see trailing behind it... a fighter jet. At this point the oh shit circuit in your brain automatically triggers.
The plane comes in and just past my building does a hard bank that no normal 747 on regular business would ever do and from my vantage point appears momentarily to be making a bee line for the tallest building in NJ, 30 Hudson St which is owned by Goldman Sachs, an iconic investment bank that has taken TARP money and a highly likely target, which also houses my old coworkers whom I am still friends with. Again- "oh shit." I apparently only saw the last iteration of the passes it made because it immediately went off into the distance and appeared to be headed to Newark airport, tailed by two fighter jets.
So yeah I think a plane crashing into my building is just going to be a once in a lifetime event too, until I see a 747 buzzing my building at full speed less than 200 yards away tailed by fighter jets. This came without warning, and even if people were warned, the pilot was making some cowboy moves- a friend of mine said it looked like the plane came within 100 feet of the Goldman building. If on any given day you have stared down the nose of a 747 heading at your building at 300+ mph, and didn't have a glimpse of fear because "that will never happen again," I would say there is something wrong with you.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
They're a coffin if there's a fire on the ground floor and you're on floor -50?
I wonder... if there was a fire on the ground floor, would you even care if you're on floor -50?
The smoke and hot air will go up and out. I suppose the fire could burn down to that level but that would probably take a long time and firewalls between floors could probably prevent most of the spread.
There might be a problem with water used to fight the fire, but then you probably would already have sump pumps to take care of ground water that is probably already seeping in.
I suppose if you had any number of these deep buildings that you'd interconnect them below ground level and have escape routes that don't require going straight up.
The only thing I wouldn't like would be the lack of sunlight.
Re:We are a bunch (Score:5, Interesting)
There are low flying planes all the time. It's not a reason to panic, and no reasonable person would believe they were likely to die there.
Easy to say when you weren't looking the plane dead in the eye coming straight at your building. While low flying planes may be "normal," this plane was in restricted airspace, was flying extremely irregularly, and was tailed by a fighter jet. That's anything but "normal." You have seconds to react to something like this. I'm rather happy I evacuated, anything else would have been foolish.
Re:We are a bunch (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm currently being taught by an instructor who was a member of PAPPA(Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance), and was at the pit a couple of weeks after. Members of the NYPD and FDNY who post/read here know what I'm talking about. One of the things he repeatedly relates to those of us in class is that for every member of the NYPD that was at the meetings, and every member of the FDNY who didn't go realize how much stress, and PTSD has come up from the event.
The issue is for all those people still working downtown, the people who worked in the pit, and got second hand info from others, the first responders, I'll bet that PTSD kicked in for some of them today. Saying that it is a once in a life time event is fine, however the effects of that event have not gone away for many people. Without the proper outlet, and resources for people it won't either. The human psyche is an amazing thing, it's also very fragile.
I'll even hazard that for a good number of them, they were stuck in a tunnel seeing the same events from 9/11 all over again, when Air Force One did that flyby, or even did when they heard about it later today.
Re:Put yourself in their shoes (Score:2, Interesting)
I just re-read this 5 times and realized that the terrorists have won.
You mean you didn't realize this less than a week after 9/11?
Re:Put yourself in their shoes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is, why the hell were they flying so low? They HAD to have known this would cause a scare!
I remember last summer feeling a huge rattling in my office building in Newport News, VA, to look out the window to see a 747 with a US flag painted across its tail pass by just a few hundred feet above. (This was also notable, because I'm pretty certain that the building is in restricted airspace)
This repeated two or three times more. Apparently it's normal for Air Force 1 to fly at ridiculously low altitudes (below radar?)
AFAIK, the only 747s operated by the US Government with that paint scheme are operated as Air Force 1.
Re:We are a bunch (Score:3, Interesting)
Umm, have you ever fired a real weapon outside of Call of Duty? You think it's easy to get a headshot with a handgun when the person is shooting back at you? Keep in mind that your body is filled with adrenaline and your fine motor skills have vanished. Keep in mind that as a patrolman you are trained to shoot center of mass and have practiced shooting center of mass. During combat your body primarily falls back to muscle memory and training.
Strange things have been known to happen during gunfights. I listened to one law enforcement officer recount a shooting where he had to reload his gun. He pocketed the empty magazine because that's what he was used to doing at the range. In so doing he delayed his reload and nearly got himself killed. He didn't do it on purpose, it was just the reaction that his body had under the stress of the situation.
I'm sure they would have been able to subdue him and save lives but it wouldn't have been pretty. To casually suggest "headshot" as a solution suggests to me that you don't have any actual understanding of combat outside of video games.
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder... if there was a fire on the ground floor, would you even care if you're on floor -50?
If the fire was big enough and a bit lower than ground floor, it could (and would) probably suck most of the air from the lower floors.
I think you would care, yes.