Here’s today’s links you need to click.
Maverick: Tower, this is Ghost rider requesting a flyby.
Air Boss Johnson: That’s a negative Ghost rider, the pattern is full.
Let me just start this off by saying that this blog post won’t be as funny as Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” and Anthony Edwards’ “Goose” having their way with control towers in “Top Gun.”
On Monday morning, I received a frantic voice mail from my mom on my work number, just moments after she left a message on my cellphone, asking if everything was okay. Having no idea what she was so concerned about, and why she was calling about “what was happening” in the NYC area, I rang her back, only to learn that someone she works with received a phone call from a friend who’d just run out of their building in Jersey City’s financial district, on the Hudson River right across from NYC’s financial district, after a large plane along with a fighter escort was flying very low over the area. Nothing was on the news, nothing was online, except for half a dozen people on Twitter, including the WFMU radio station.
@WFMU: Commercial jet is circling very low above WFMU / Jersey City, being escorted by single fighter plane. Has circled 3 times already. wtf?
As someone who’s lived in some portion of New Jersey that planes fly above or along for his whole life, you have a pretty good handle on where the planes are or aren’t supposed to be. That, of course, has been exacerbated by the post-9/11 observations of people, who are probably paying attention slightly more than they ever did before that sunny September day. Shortly thereafter, the WSJ (among others) reported that it was actually just a photo op.
Are you kidding me?
As it turns out, there wasn’t any kidding involved. NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg, among others, were not happy. I’m gonna presume that the hundreds (thousands) of workers that evacuated their buildings weren’t happy either.
Now I don’t mean to be overly-sensitive, but if this was supposed to be a test or something like that (which it wasn’t), you’d think maybe people in the government would be smart enough to tell the necessary parties (apparently the NYPD, among others, knew), and that they’d at least have the ability to grasp that someone might overreact or react the way they did today when the large plane and military escort flew far lower than planes normally do?
Of course, it didn’t seem like anyone had their stuff together. Government fail.
@tombiro: White House with no comment on the military directing press to talk with White House about this morning’s plane incident. Redirected back.
Here’s my favorite part from today’s White House press briefing where press secretary Robert Gibbs had an interesting time answering questions about the flyover.
Q It doesn’t — it’s not a concern at all to the administration that you don’t have your person there and then they don’t have their people there? Not at all?
Second question, do you guys feel you owe folks in New York City this morning an apology for this incident having to do with the airplane that looks like Air Force One with two fighter jets? There seemed to be a lot of panic –
MR. GIBBS: I would point you to the FAA or Air Force.
Q Everybody’s pointing us to the White House Military Office, so that’s why –
MR. GIBBS: Well, then I would contact the White House –
Q Well, the White House Military Office won’t tell us anything — they’ll refer us to you. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Well, then let me go discuss with the White House Military — I don’t — I have seen some news reports but –
Q What was the photo op for?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know. That’s — I have no information on this other than what I saw –
Q I mean, I understand the way this works. I’m just saying, appearance-wise, it’s odd that you guys don’t have a response. I mean, this is the President’s aircraft or what looks like –
MR. GIBBS: I understand. I was working on other things. You might be surprised to know I don’t know of every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it. But I will certainly talk to the Military Office.
At least Monday is over. And you can thank “Top Gun” for the quote. And John for using it regularly.
(that title should be sung to “Love in an elevator” by Aerosmith, btw)
Singapore Airlines would like to take this time to let you know that you should probably not have sex in one of its 12 private suites on its new, monstrous, A380 airplane. No, really. Apparently, it’s not soundproof, and they don’t want anyone to be offended by your manliness.
[via Propeller]
Okay, well I already passed the screening by the TSA, and should be expecting my CLEAR card within the next week or two. I’m very psyched to be able to use it, but The Girlfriend thinks that I’m going to use it when we travel and leave her behind at the security gate. I’m not *that* mean, am I?
Okay, so I finished up the setup of my CLEAR account at Newark airport. Took about ten minutes, did all kinds of fun fingerprints and retinal scans. Best part was that they ask what airlines you fly, and after I said that I typically am on Continental, they offered me a note card where you could share your thoughts on getting CLEAR set up at the terminals at EWR where pretty much all of the Continental flights go out of. Now I just have to wait 2-4 weeks for my in depth background check and I’m good to go.
If you haven’t already, and you live in a city where CLEAR is working, then go sign up.
Yep, so I finally signed up for CLEAR. No, not that clear, the one that makes it easier for you to go through security lines at select airports across the U.S.
Took care of the online portion to get the ball rolling, and I’m going to try and hit up the in-person part of it later this week when I’m at Newark Airport. Now, if only most of the flights I took were going out of the terminals/airports that had the service, rather than just a few of them.
Thanks, Josh!