A chronically tardy Mayor de Blasio infuriated the loved ones of American Airlines Flight 587 victims by arriving 20 minutes late for a memorial ceremony on Wednesday — and blaming it on a bad night’s sleep.
“I had a very rough night and woke up sluggish. And I should have gotten myself moving quicker,” he told reporters in the afternoon. “Just woke up in the middle of the night, couldn’t get back to sleep and felt really sluggish and off-kilter this morning.”
The ceremony in Rockaway Park — the 13th annual commemoration of the tragedy — is a sacred event for the victims’ relatives, who said de Blasio’s excuses made a bad situation worse.
“He treated us like garbage,” fumed Miriam Estrella, who lost five family members aboard the doomed 2001 flight to the Dominican Republic.
The plane crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens, killing 260 on board and five on the ground.
Estrella scoffed at de Blasio’s excuses. “That’s complete BS to me because you are the mayor of New York. If you want to be here at a certain time, you will be here at a certain time,” she sid.
The key point of the solemn ceremony is a moment of silence and the ringing a bell at 9:16 a.m. to mark the exact minute the jet plummeted from the sky after taking off from JFK.
After the event, staffers blamed the fog for the mayor’s lateness.
But hours later, de Blasio said both the fog and his ragged condition Wednesday morning were responsible.
“The fog caught us off guard,” he said. “But again, I take absolute responsibility. I think everyone else did their job, and I take responsibility.”
In the uncomfortable minutes that followed his planned time of arrival, family members looked at one another in disbelief and whispered disapproval.
A police officer enlisted to ring the bell stood motionless, respectfully awaiting the mayor’s arrival. Someone from the mayor’s staff told Estrella that de Blasio was on his way, but the tension mounted, prompting her to act. “I’m sorry everyone,” she announced. “Sorry our mayor’s not here, but it is the time that exactly 13 years ago, our family members passed away, and we will toll the bells.”
De Blasio made his entrance minutes later, at 9:25, kissed some of the relatives on the cheeks and spoke for five minutes.
“Time has done little to dull the pain, but it has brought some measure of healing,” he told them.
Loved ones recalled former Mayor Michael Bloomberg arriving early each year and brushed off de Blasio’s excuses.
“He didn’t even apologize,” said Gisela Reyes, who lost a brother in the crash. “I couldn’t even cry because I was so mad.”