Photo shoot panics city

A replica of Air Force One and two fighter jets flew low Monday morning over lower Manhattan and Jersey City, the same area that had a front-row seat to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, according to nytimes.com.

Oh, but don't worry. It was a routine photo shoot approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. They just didn't feel the need to inform the public. This shows serious insensitivity toward the people of New York, who panicked and ran out of buildings.

The FAA approved the photo shoot of a replica of Air Force One, recognizable to the public as a Boeing 747, accompanied by two F-16 fighter jets, which mirrored the maneuvers of the 747. They flew low over Manhattan and Jersey City to get a picture of Air Force One over the skyline, according to nytimes.com.

How can a plan this flawed be approved? The Boeing 747 is a commercial airplane. If a commercial airplane is flying low enough to rattle glass in buildings, as several eyewitnesses reported to The New York Times, there will be widespread panic. I'm not a New York City resident, but if I saw a commercial airplane flying low above my house, I'm going to assume something is horribly wrong.

I can't even imagine what it must have felt like for a Sept. 11 survivor to see a commercial airplane flying low over his or her office building. No wonder New Yorkers ran out of buildings into the streets.

They didn't even have the New York Police Department to protect them. Police officers did not know about the planned exercise, according to nytimes.com. Officials in the police department said they was notified of the flyover but were not allowed to notify the public.

The flaws in communication are appalling. The Defense Department and the FAA contacted Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's office, although the mayor himself was furious upon learning about the chaos the flyover caused, according to nytimes.com. He said he was not aware of the flyover until he received calls asking if he knew what was going on.

The White House issued an official apology Monday afternoon. Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, said he approved the flyover and would take any and all responsibility for the distress it caused, according to nytimes.com. The president was furious upon learning about the approved flyover, according to cnn.com.

Calls from patients flooded Linda Garcia-Rose, a therapist in New York who works with post-traumatic stress disorder victims, according to cnn.com. She also reported having a panic attack herself.

Garcia-Rose considered filing a class action lawsuit against the government for approving the flight without informing the public, according to cnn.com.

Those who approved the exercise should have thought harder about how New Yorkers would feel about it, how it would affect survivors and what might happen if they didn't inform the public. If officials had used caution, the chaos could have been avoided.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks created fear among the American people, especially New Yorkers. It's not ancient history; there are still hordes of survivors and eyewitnesses. The government failed to respect the survivors, the New Yorkers who pass Ground Zero every day and those who lost loved ones during the attacks.