FAA Rejects Military Flyover

The good news: All channels of government seemed to be communicating with each other Monday when the U.S. Navy requested a flight up and down the Hudson River, next to New York City. The bad news: Someone in the U.S. Navy was foolish enough to request a flight up and down the Hudson, next to New York City, two weeks after an unannounced Boeing 747 flyover sent panicked New Yorkers fleeing from office buildings. A Navy unit based in Brunswick, Maine, was hoping to fly a P-3 Orion reconnaissance plane up and down the river at 3,000 feet, well above the height of the city’s tallest skyscrapers. The FAA, taking no chances, denied the request. Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not oppose the flight, but the mayor of Jersey City made clear his astonishment at the audacity of such a request: “This was a mistake that would have repeated the whole stupid and alarming process that occurred two weeks ago.”