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By Kelly Chernenkoff
FOXNews.com
The Department of Defense released a flurry of additional photos Friday of Air Force One’s controversial Manhattan flyover in April.
A total of 146 photos were released of the April 27 incident, which panicked many local citizens and prompted officials in the New York metropolitan area to question why the White House Military Office did not make the mission more broadly known.
At the time of the incident, the lack of a heads-up outraged New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who did not get advance notice of the flyover that would have enabled the city to alert the public. The sight of a jumbo jet flying low over the city sparked memories of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and led to many frightened workers evacuating office buildings both in downtown Manhattan and in New Jersey.
In May, the White House reluctantly released a single photo of the flyover, prompting 40 organizations, including FOX News, to formally request the Department of Defense to release of the rest of the photos. Citing the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, FOX News also requested records related to the decision not to notify the media or the public of the photo-op.
The Federal Aviation Administration told FOX News in a letter that some of those documents were withheld because they are exempted from FOIA’s mandatory public disclosure requirement due to the “sensitive security information” and information about the “deliberative process” they contained.
The Boeing 747 plane, an Air Force One backup, with an F-16 escort following close behind, circled the Statue of Liberty and the skyline near the World Trade Center site for about 30 minutes on April 27, serving both as a training mission and to update the photographic files of the president’s plane.
The plane is designated Air Force One only when the president is aboard.
The photo-op cost $328,835, which included personnel, maintenance and fuel costs, according to the Air Force, which said the hours would have been flown regardless and the expenses accrued on a different mission.
President Obama, who was not on the plane, was said to be “furious” over the incident and called for a review, which subsequently led to the resignation of the White House Military Office’s director, Louis Caldera.
“The president instructed the staff to ensure that [this type of incident] doesn’t happen again,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.
Normally, a training mission of this sort would not be reported high up the chain of command, but the administration implied that common sense should have prevailed in such a sensitive locale.
Photo-ops of the presidential plane over national landmarks are not an anomaly, but the internal review made clear that more clarity is needed in notification procedures
Source: Fox News
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