If the September 11th atrocity had never happened, the plane that smashed into an Upper East Side building would be no more than a tragic accident, much like the terrible 1945 Empire State building crash. But in the post-9/11 world, the accident was an indicator of how dramatically things have changed. A small plane tearing through a Manhattan high-rise—the sight of rippling orange flames, thick black plumes of smoke rising in the overcast sky, and the sound of screams—resurrected the fear that terrorists could strike again.
It soon became clear that the city had its weak spots. The Cirrus SR20, carrying New York Yankees journeyman pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor Tyler Stanger, left from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to soar alongside the skyscrapers of Manhattan. They traveled along the Hudson River, swooped around Lady Liberty and headed up the East River. There, they made what veteran pilots have described as a tricky U-turn and ultimately hit the north side of the Belaire on East 72nd Street and York Avenue. Since the small plane flew at such a low altitude, they were not required to file a flight plan or maintain communication, causing many to worry that the lack of regulation could have been advantageous to a terrorist. Politicians quickly came out to criticize the lenient policy and successfully demanded a review and a change in Federal Aviation Administration regulations.
The skies were quieter by week’s end, and the partially charred brick building was a point of intrigue and discussion. New Yorkers were curious and wanted to see a thousand more words than the pictures could tell. A public space at One East River Park provided the perfect location for New York gawkers to angle their heads upward and get a good look at the punctured building. Lavonia Cissey and Lisa Robbins sat down in the black metal chairs facing the building.
“I think people were probably very apprehensive. They might have thought that this was terrorism, and some people might have said, ‘This is New York. These kinds of things happen,’” Cissey said. But her terrorism barometer told her otherwise. “It won’t be an apartment building. It’s going to be something more major than that,” she said.
Robbins added, “I don’t know, sometimes you have an intuitive feeling that it is or it isn’t.”
It took Cissey two whole years before she was able to visit Ground Zero. Just a few days after this crash, however, Cissey came to look at the Belaire. “I visualize those things in my own mind, and I think about it; the same way with 9/11; I actually envisioned these people running down the staircases and what they may have been feeling. It’s just horrible,” she said.
It’s been little more than five years since the attack, but its impact on everyday life has not faded. New Yorkers have also shared in the pain with cities like Bali, Madrid and London, which have all experienced acts of terror. Each attack has drawn attention to security concerns. Following attacks on London’s transportation system on July 7, 2005, New York began randomly searching bags on its subway system. This tragic crash also made politicians scurry to take action. Two days after the awful accident, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a letter to the FAA insisting that the agency reevaluate its rules for general aviation aircraft, noting that the 9/11 Commission Report and a 2006 Department of Homeland Security report both acknowledge a potential threat.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that the new FAA regulation, which requires fixed-wing aircraft to get authorization before entering the East River corridor, would not necessarily make the city safer. “We have very few accidents for an awful lot of traffic. Every time you have an automobile accident, you’re not going to go and close the streets or prohibit people from driving,” he said.
Congressman Anthony Weiner was outraged. “History, known intelligence reports and common sense show the need for tighter regulations to secure the skies around Manhattan. It’s not just a matter of safety for pilots and passengers, but also for security for citizens on the ground,” Weiner said. “I would think that the Mayor of New York City should want his residents to have the same level of security that the Mayor of Washington’s residents enjoy,” he added. He also renewed his call to ban choppers from flying over the City. In 2004, a potentially pernicious plot was learned by British and Pakistani intelligence that al-Qaeda would use helicopters to target New York. Investigators were told by one captive terrorist that he had used a New York City helicopter tour to gather information.
Close to the city, there’s one congressman who has sought to bar planes from flying over a nuclear power plant in Westchester. Congressman Eliot Engel requested a no-fly zone in 2003 in an area about 20 miles north of the city, around Indian Point. While he does not believe that all air traffic should be barred from Manhattan’s skies, Congressman Engel said, “At the very least, we should consider restricting where and when planes could fly over Manhattan.”
“Just like with Indian Point, the apologists are saying there’s no danger,” he said. “In this post-9/11 era, I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
Whether up above in the sky or down below riding the rails, security concerns abound in post-9/11 New York. Queens City Councilman John Liu, chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee, said that there are many different efforts being taken underground to address security, like random bag searches, new K-9 units and increased personnel. “The NYPD and the City is doing the best job that it can,” he said.
But Liu said that the Metropolitan Transit Authority has inadequately addressed security concerns, even though they have $1.1 billion earmarked for “hardening the system against attacks.”
“This is a responsibility that falls squarely with the MTA. In that regard they have failed miserably,” Liu said.
The only hardening project that the MTA has announced, Liu said, is the plan to place over 1,000 cameras with updated surveillance software throughout the subway system. A $212 million contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin this past August. “There’s a total lack of urgency,” he said. “It’s as if the MTA has thrown its hands up in the air.”
The MTA has also drawn the criticism of young artists angry with the “If you see something, say something” campaign, which encourages riders to be vigilant and keep an eye out for suspicious packages. In the latest student stunt, Pratt Institute juniors Robert Barrett, 21, and Jamie Davis, 21, took bags marked with the MTA’s slogan and phone numbers to five different stations and left them unattended in late September. The bags’ contents were harmless; each was stuffed with copies of the New York Post and various comic strips. Police said that Barrett wanted to make a commentary on the campaign’s ineffectiveness. The students potentially face seven years behind bars if convicted of several felony counts of placing false bombs in mass transit areas.
The Pratt students, either inauthentic or inspired, follow the 2002 act of Clinton Boisvert, who positioned over 30 black boxes emblazoned with the word “fear” throughout the Union Square station. Then a student of Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, Boisvert received a light community service sentence. Less than a month later, 26-year-old Ani Weinstein was found sticking black boxes labeled “fear art” at the same station.
Despite the dramatic antics of critics, the fact remains that there is no infallible way to completely safeguard a city from potential terrorists, and protecting the rails is particularly tough. “There’s nothing more difficult than trying to secure the subway system,” said J. Michael Barrett, a Harbinger/ICx Technologies Homeland Security Fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Policing Terrorism and author of Securing Global Transportation Networks. Barrett said that unlike an airport that has a natural point of entry, the subway system has hundreds.
Technology is expensive to implement, Barrett said, noting that a good security method “has to be everywhere, and it has to be cheap.” Although there were challenges over random bag searches conducted underground, many New Yorkers were more than willing to open up their backpacks and purses for safety. Others were not so willing to forfeit their privacy. “They did the random bag searches in New York and the ACLU got all bent out of shape,” he said. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the New York City Police Department to challenge the policy in 2005 and lost in court.
In 2005, Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind called for the use of profiling during the random bag searches. “The FBI and authorities have a good idea of who is going to commit terrorism. They all look similar, but everyone is terrified of using the word racial,” he told the New York Post.
Singling out people of Middle Eastern descent, however, is not effective, Barrett said. He believes that it is the randomness of the searches that prevents terrorists from adapting and finding people that do not fit the type, like American Taliban member Johnny Walker Lindh.
Barrett said that efforts to fight terrorism in the air have been focused on commercial airplanes. “I guess we’ve made the decision that you can’t do that much damage with a small plane,” he said. While the rules for small aircraft have been lax, he said, “That is a potential threat, but you have to draw the line somewhere.”
Of biggest concern in the Big Apple are its ports, Barrett said. Only 2 percent of containers are inspected when they arrive on our shores. Barrett said the problem is that containers aren’t screened overseas, and it’s nearly impossible to look at them while they are en route to the City.
Security issues are unsettling for many New Yorkers. In the wake of 9/11 a large chunk of the population still worries about another attack. A September New York Times/ CBS News poll found that two-thirds of New Yorkers are “very concerned” about the potential of an attack. The poll also found that six in 10 New Yorkers would not want to work in a high-rise at the World Trade Center site, and 40 percent said that the 9/11 attacks made them “nervous and edgy.”
Before 9/11, New Yorkers were a hardened bunch. Although most refuse to live in fear, there are little everyday occurrences that could rattle nerves—a train gets stuck in a tunnel for a bit too long and your stomach sinks; you take a second look at a plane you perceived to be flying too low; you look at an unattended black bag on the street suspiciously and it turns out to be nothing more than someone’s discarded lunch.
Across the street from the Belaire, there’s a thud, probably from workers removing debris. Robbins is visibly startled. Since 9/11, Lavonia Cissey and Lisa Robbins have changed things in their ordinary lives. Robbins worries about how she would evacuate her cat from her Manhattan apartment in an emergency. Cissey carries her belongings from room to room in case she has to leave her high-rise in the Bronx in a hurry. “I make sure I’m fully clothed in the evening because you just never know,” Cissey added.
There are other things that she won’t do anymore. “I don’t fly anymore. Nothing could get me on a plane. I’m done with flying,” she said. Cissey has traveled enough, she said, having been to England and having lived in Japan. But after 9/11 and other accidental plane crashes, she said she'd rather not risk dying that way. “If I could choose, I definitely don’t want to do it that way, and I think we all think about that.”
