Slashdot Mirror
Air Force One Flyby Causes Brief Panic In NYC
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."
Da Plane, Da Plane...
I won't lie, I irrationally freak out every time I see a plane flying low. Although it's never anything- just some sight-seeing tourist plane. Still freaks me out. I don't live in the city though, I live in central NH. I can imagine why it freaks out New Yorkers. So before everybody goes on the whole "everybody's just over-reacting" thing, why don't we instead consider other options:
-Building tall buildings underground, instead of above.
-Requiring high altitudes for all planes, military or civilian, and producing auto-shoot auto-aim turrets around the ciy with no warning shots.
- Include parashoots as standard emergency materials for skyscrapers?
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Alert. Unafraid citizen. Sanitize... SANITIZE!
It's not "amazing" that people live in fear. It's REQUIRED. Anyone not living in fear is being thoroughly unpatriotic.
Remember, if you've checked the "Democrat" box, you must fear Conservatives, Pedophiles, Rednecks, and Terrorists. If you've checked the "Republican" box, you have to fear Liberals, Gays, Foreigners, and Terrorists. Either way you have to support more surveillance and less individual rights.
Face it - rational risk assessment is unAmerican in the 21st century. If you're not afraid, then you can't be bullied and herded efficiently... and we can't have that.
I didn't check either box... and the only people I'm afraid of are the people that did.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I fear authoritarians, opportunistic politicians, and bad financial planning. Also stupid people.
Since this is Slashdot, sometimes I fear reading the article.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Planes don't fly low here anymore. Its not allowed. Certainly not 747s. For the people that were here Sept 11, 2001(I was one of the many)....its very upsetting, disturbing....to look up and see a plane that low and near. So don't jump to conclusions about people over-reacting. Its a real thing for New Yorkers and others in the area.
A plane is being escorted by F-16s. And this causes hundreds of people to flee for their lives by making a mad dash out of their building? There's being careful, then there's being an overly paranoid idiot. I'm pretty sure that if the jets are there, you'd be safer *in a building* rather than where all the explodey shrapnel can get to you.
A low flying 747 flying low near manhattan being pursued by F-16s. Definitely no reason to be alarmed! After all, if they fired missiles at the potentially hijacked plane it would explode completely like in the movies. There definitely wouldn't be any large, flaming fragments of the plane to crash in to buildings, potentially trapping those inside. You're right, definitely much safer in buildings.
It's pretty terrible that we as a nation are this scared by such events.
It's not a nation scared by such events, it's a couple hundred thousand people who work within a few blocks of where - in case you missed it - two low-flying planes hit a prominent local building, killing several thousand and leaving a huge hole in the ground.
It's amazing how much people live in fear these days.
The entrance to the train station which these people use everyday is part of the above mentioned hole. The only thing amazing is that you would have a hard time seeing why they might be "scared by such events".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
There is a very real threat and people are justifiably concerned.
Brett
No there isn't. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime events. I could be worried about an elevator car falling 20 stories and killing me in the fall, or being hit by lightning. Either of those are more likely than a repeat of 9/11. Vigilance against threat is one thing. To focus on one event to the point where it affects your work is excessive. There's no reason to worry specifically that any random jet is going to crash in to your building. That's just fearmongering.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Unfortunately for people who experienced the collapse of the WTC towers first hand, low flying planes crashing into buildings is something that could reasonably happen, and one could argue that it is not sane to wait and see if an unusually low flying plane is actually going to crash into a building before taking steps to save one's life.
As someone who was in lower Manhattan the last time a jetliner flew very low... you can bet your bottom dollar I'd be out of my building and on my way home (to NJ) if I saw that.
I wasn't in much personal danger on 9/11 (merely took the Path under the WTC), but I'll tell you that it really *SUCKED* to wait in line for hours and hours to catch a ferry across the Hudson without any means to contact my family (cell service was impossible to get).
Next time that shit happens, I'm first in line at the ferry (excepting the elderly, the very young, and the preggers).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
And this causes hundreds of people to flee for their lives by making a mad dash out of their building?
No, it gives a bunch of folks the excuse to drop their work, run outside, have a cigarette, grab a hot dog, a beer, another hot dog, more beer . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
it was a 747 flying at under 1,000 feet with two military escorts. If I saw that, and I worked where the bulk of the 9/11 dead are still buried I'd feel some panic as well.
It's pathetic how many on here are making fun of these people. Just to give you an idea of how low that is, 1,000 feet is roughly 1/2 the total height of the WTC twin towers.
How many people here would stay somewhere if they thought they were reasonably likely to die there?
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. Instead, we have unreasonable people panicing over an unreasonable fear. You're still more likely to be eaten by a shark than you are to die in another plane crashing into a building.
"of fuckin' wussy people."
- 3 planeloads of people let 5 men armed with hand tools take over airplanes - because that's what they've been told to do. As soon as the 4th planeload of people find out how they've been lied to, they take action and save many more lives.
- Hundreds of students cower under desks waiting be rescued from 1 man with 2 handguns, and the only person to do ANYTHING is an octogenarian who gets killed for his efforts to protect the strong, healthy, 18-22 year old "adults" hiding in fear. The most played interview is of a young man who was simply waiting to die. He is called "heroic".
- A man starts shooting in an immigrant center, and police take 45 minutes to enter the building, while people hide like scared rabbits waiting to be rescued. The police state that their response time was irrelevant - the victims would have died anyway.
Oh yes, we have reached the point where helplessness is considered noble, where former soldiers are considered security risks because the government trained them to kill, and the people whose "job" it is to protect us simply shrug their shoulders and pick up the bodies.
Wussies doesn't really cover it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
The last time a jetliner flew very low, didn't it end up in the Hudson? Didn't ferry service stop immediately?
There are low flying planes all the time. They're just not normally flanked by a pair of F-15s over Manhatten.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Isn't it a good thing the fighters were there?
Shouldn't people be more worried about low flying planes without them?
Most people become terrified upon entering situations where both death and helplessness are present, like being fired at by an individual with a gun when you have none. This is nothing to be ashamed of, this is just being human. You might be a superman capable of charging across the room and kung-fuing the gun out of a madman's hand, and I'm glad for you that you are, but don't heap disdain on those that have frozen in such situations.
I value politeness. If you extend it to me, I'll extend it to you.
This is nothing to be ashamed of
Nor is it anything to be proud of or held as an example of heroic behaviour.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious. Senior administration officials conveyed the presidentâ(TM)s anger in a meeting with Mr. Caldera on Monday afternoon." Source: NYTimes http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/air-force-one-backup-rattles-new-york-nerve/
And how often do jet-liners fly around Manhattan at 1/2 the height of the WTC towers? You realise that is how low Air Force 1.2 was flying, right?
Any idiot with a memory and a little willingness to live will trade 2 hours of their work day on a one-off event to make sure they don't die.
Risk of death (since this is quite similar to what happened 8 years ago) vs. missing an hour or two of work. Most reasonably intelligent people would scram, just in case. By the way you and others evaluate risk, man I'd sure love to play some poker against you some time. I could make a killing! You'll be thinking: "He's only ever taken all of my chips once, and even though he's playing almost exactly like he did last time, there's no way he's going to do the same thing to me this time, I'll just keep betting even though I have no good cards." Ka-ching! What are the odds anyway, right? AmIright?
Flip the situation around, if it HAD been another hijacked plane, and it HAD flown into a building and the people HADN'T evacuated because they didn't want to be seen as wussies, then you same people would be talking about how such idiots they were, they had all this evidence, I mean it was almost EXACTLY LIKE last time, any idiot would know to evacuate, blah blah blah.
You people are childish. When an event has only ever happened once, and something that appears to be very similar is happening again in the same area, the rational response is to protect yourself. The only protection against a plane crashing into a building is: *drumroll* Evacuating!
My question is, why the hell were they flying so low? They HAD to have known this would cause a scare!
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Its been almost 8 years, actually. Get over it.
According to CNN, the FAA and Air Force informed the NYPD and the NY Mayors office that this was going to happen, but the staff at both didn't think it would be necessary to 1) inform the public, or 2) inform the Mayor himself(!).
No wonder NYC is a mess :)
(not sure why the initial version of this was posted anonymously)
F-16s, not F-15s. Why does this matter so much?
We've sold F-16s to just about everyone. There's no guarantee they are ours.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
A ferry is a boat, it's used to cross water.
:)
Last time I checked, I wasn't Jesus, so I don't think I could have walked home.
FYI, the tunnels were closed too, and I'd have needed to walk about 20 miles out of my way to cross using a bridge.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A man starts shooting in an immigrant center, and police take 45 minutes to enter the building, while people hide like scared rabbits waiting to be rescued. The police state that their response time was irrelevant - the victims would have died anyway.
With all due respect, I live in this town and the media hasn't reported that story fairly or accurately. Are you familiar with the fog of war? Nobody knows what's going on. All the police knew at the time is that they've arrived on scene and no shots are being fired. They have contact with the receptionist up front (the true heroine that day) and some people hiding in the basement. None of the people they had contact with could see the shooter -- all they knew was that the shots had ceased.
The working assumption at first was that they were dealing with a hostage situation. You may recall that this is what the media reported. Now if you think you are dealing with a hostage situation are you going to go charging in and risk further loss of life or are you going to try and establish contact with the hostage-taker while getting the rest of your units in place and ready to go in? Within ten minutes they had the shooters information and were attempting to contact him. When they eventually found his cell phone (abandoned in his vehicle as I recall) it had a series of missed calls from the police on it.
When they couldn't establish contact they decided to go into the building. They deployed the SWAT team and a robot from the bomb squad. Clearing the building took another 30-45 minutes, during which time the victims were being taken out. The folks in the basement were advised to barricade the door and remain in contact. As their cell phone batteries died they switched off and called from another phone. Further complicating this was the language barrier -- the building in question was an immigrant center and many of the victims didn't speak English.
Every local police officer I've spoken with says that they are trained for active shooter scenarios. If shots were still being fired when they arrived they would have gone in. It would have been messy (the suspect had body armor and patrolmen don't have the weapons or training to deal with that) but they would have gone in nonetheless. Since they didn't hear shots they proceeded with caution rather than risk running up the body count further. Does this really seem unreasonable to you?
Oh yes, we have reached the point where helplessness is considered noble
You'll brook no argument from me on this point. "Just wait for the police, don't try to do anything yourself, you might get hurt" The arguments against gun-ownership are particularly insulting in this regard. I just wanted to correct you on the Binghamton shooting. As I said, I live in this area and I feel that our police agencies handled the matter as well as could be expected with the information that they had at the time. Will they learn a few lessons from this and refine their procedures? Probably. Do they deserve our scorn for how they responded to this incident? No, IMHO, they don't.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I hope more people read this. A fighter plane escort means two things:
- the authorities know the plane is there
- the decision to shoot it down has not been taken
All of this means in turn that the situation is considered to be under control.
I'm worried when I hear fighter jets screaming above my head at full after-burner - it means they're in a hurry. I'm worried when I see a lone jet plane on a path that is clearly not a regular flight path - it means it either is in trouble, or trying to get into trouble.
But a jet escorted by a fighter plane is not part of any of those scenarios. Unless someone completely fucks up, and then we're right back into the territory of paranoia and irrational risk assessment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Brave Sir Robin, that is...
"When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned around and fled,
Brave, brave brave, brave Sir Robin"