Results tagged “lowflyingplanes”

Maybe Senator Chuck Schumer has the right idea with being constantly ticked off by the Federal Aviation Administration—it turns out that the FAA was well aware that the Boeing 747 and military jets (also known as the "Presidential Airlift Group") would scare the bejesus out of people in lower Manhattan and New Jersey as they did on Monday. From WCBS 2:

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

Schumer told CBS 2's Marcia Kramer, "To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it's just confounding. It's what gives Washington and government a bad name. It's sheer stupidity." Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, whose department knew about the exercise but kept quiet, said, "I think going forward we would never tolerate that again. It was insensitive. It was very low. These are people who were of course traumatized significantly as a result of Sept. 11."