FUMBLE: AIR FORCE DUMB

“Air heads in D.C. terrorize city” screamed the New York Post headline. “Scare Force One” said the ABC News headline. As CBS News anchor Katie Couric wrote in her online notebook, “As it turns out, swine flu isn’t the only airborne problem the Obama administration is addressing today.” “Create your own NYC Air Force One flyover photo… we did,” said the New York Daily News headline. As idiotic as some events or decisions are, at TD&F we only pass judgment on the communications play. And U.S. federal aviations officials who notified Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office and the NYPD – yet swore them to absolutely secrecy – clearly blew this communications play. Thousands of New Yorkers thought it was another 9/11 attack and many fled from their office high rises when the Air Force One jumbo jet banked sharply over Manhattan trailed by a fighter jet that appeared to be pursuing it. All for an Air Force One photo-op with the New York skyline in the background? Forget Photoshop (although New York Daily News readers came up with many great examples of how this could have been done without scaring people), why did the federal aviation officials insist on such secrecy? Air Force One has some of the most sophisticated defense systems of any aircraft in the world, it was tailed by a fighter jet, and the President was not on board. So what was the risk of New Yorkers knowing the plane was doing a fly-by and maybe even getting their own pictures from the ground? Was some communications “expert” trying to save potential embarrassment about the fact that this was a photo-op? If so, it was a communications miscalculation of epic proportions compared to the embarrassment this has now caused the White House and the President, who promptly apologized and pledged it will “never happen again.” Trying to hide something that is in plain sight is never a wise communications strategy. Better to be up front about it, particularly if you insist on buzzing Manhattan skyscrapers with a jumbo jet.