NEW YORK — An airliner and a supersonic fighter jet zoomed low past the Lower Manhattan skyline in a flash Monday. Fearing a replay of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands fled their offices.
For a half-hour, the Boeing 747 and F-16 jet circled the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan. Dispatchers were inundated with calls.
But the flyover was nothing but a photo op, apparently one of a series of flights to get pictures of the plane in front of national landmarks. It was carried out by the Defense Department with little warning, infuriating New York officials and putting the White House on the defense. Even Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn’t know about it, and he later called it “insensitive” to fly so near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The director of the White House military office, Louis Caldera, took the blame a few hours later and apologized. One of the planes was a 747 that is called Air Force One when used by the president.
When told of the flight, President Barack Obama was furious, a White House official said on condition of anonymity. The photo op was combined with a training exercise to save money, according to another administration official.
John Leitner, a floor trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange Building, said about 1,000 people “went into a total panic” and ran out of the building around 10 a.m. after seeing the planes whiz nearby.
