I was with my co-workers, Dom and Jason getting coffee when we heard a jet engine. We were right outside the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center (across the street from "ground zero"). It was shocking to see a passenger jet 747 flying so low and so close towards us. It was 9/11 all over again. I took out my iPhone and snapped this photo. Luckily the plane started banking left. We noticed the military jet and were sure this was trouble. This plane was way too low for it to be a "routine mistake" ... We just stood there in amazement thinking the escort fighter was forcing the plane to land at Newark (seemed to be heading there). Instead within a few minutes the situation repeated itself. Again the plane low and banking left. That's when we noticed people from the exchange rushing out and yelling for all to get away from the buildings. We did. We started to rush towards Battery park. We thought the plane was going to get shot down since it didn't land at Newark as we expected it. Pretty soon people were being evacuated and staged outside of buildings. Later we were told to go back in, it was a military exercise.

I was furious. How irresponsible and cruel it is to do this on a weekday morning and not having people know about it???

At 10:43, upon return to the office, we received an email from building security stating that this was not an emergency and that they were not notified in advance.

Usually the police is sensitive enough to notify us if there is anything occurring that could cause alarm. The fact that they didn't do this and no one was expecting it made it very traumatic and all too real.

I'm glad it turned out to be ok.

But SHAME on whoever put us through this.

I was here on 9/11. It was traumatic. This was really insensitive (to put it mildly).