REFILE-UPDATE 1-White House aide resigns over N.Y. flyover
(Fixes typographical error in paragraph 9)
* Obama accepts aide's resignation
* Flight cost as much as $357,000
* Aide "did not offer coherent explanation" (Updates with aide's resignation)
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - A White House military aide who authorized an Air Force flyover of New York that caused panic among some people in the city resigned on Friday.
Louis Caldera said in a resignation letter to President Barack Obama that the controversy over the mission -- a photo shoot of a jumbo jet used as Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background -- made it impossible for him to lead the White House Military Office.
The flight over lower Manhattan for a photo shoot scared some New Yorkers who remembered the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 involving hijacked airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center. Some people panicked and evacuated office buildings when the planes flew over.
Caldera had approved the mission. His resignation came on the same day Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a letter to Senator John McCain that the photo shoot cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $357,000. Continued...
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