Contradicting public statements, Trump took secret flight from Turkey amid Iranian threat

An Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump prompted an extraordinary operation last month in which he flew secretly from Turkey on an alternate military aircraft while the White House said he was aboard Air Force One, The Washington Post has learned.

The clandestine mission, which has not been reported previously, was carried out unbeknownst to journalists and some White House staff members who believed they were on the same plane as the president, according to material reviewed by The Post, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter.

The administration has claimed that Trump departed Turkey on July 8 on the former Air Force One. Trump announced on social media that he would use the “former Air Force One” rather than the plane that flew him there, a newer Boeing 747-8 gifted to the United States by Qatar. The security of the Qatar-provided aircraft has been called into question, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades.

In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras. He was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane — an Air Force C-32A — via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight, according to the U.S. official and corroborating material reviewed by The Post. That made Air Force One a “decoy” with media and some White House staff aboard, the official said.

Trump had been in Ankara for a NATO summit with world leaders. The operation occurred a night after U.S. forces renewed military strikes on Iran at Trump’s direction following a breakdown of negotiations between Washington and Tehran to end their months-long war.

The maneuver meant that Trump’s actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior U.S. officials for hours. Weeks later, it remains unclear how widely the administration has disclosed the operation.

The Post provided the White House with the details from its reporting, along with a list of questions. In response, White House communications director Steven Cheung issued a statement defending the jet gifted by Qatar.

“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” Cheung’s statement said. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”

A spokesman for the Pentagon referred questions to the White House. A Secret Service spokesman referred questions to the White House and Pentagon.

Publicly, the White House has repeated its account that the president left Turkey on the legacy blue-and-white Boeing 747 that served as Air Force One before Trump began using the former Qatari jet.

For decades, it has been rare for U.S. presidents to travel without members of the White House press corps accompanying them in their roles as proxies for the American public. Journalists have travelled into war zones with numerous presidents, including Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

In the first hours after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush administration officials did not immediately disclose the president’s whereabouts, saying only that he had been taken to an “undisclosed location.” But they did not say he was somewhere he was not, and within hours officials revealed that he had been flown to a military facility in Nebraska.

The Trump operation unfolded quite differently, highlighting the depth of concern that U.S. security officials had about his safety leaving Turkey amid hostilities with Iran. Turkey, a key U.S. ally and member of the NATO military alliance, shares a border with Iran.

A credible threat to Trump involving Iran set the “deception operation” in motion, the U.S. official said. The New York Times and CBS News reported last month that intelligence officials flagged a specific threat of an attack on the president or his jet, triggering additional precautions.

There are decades-old concerns in the U.S. government of Iranian terrorism plots against American officials, including Trump. Those fears have escalated recently as a result of Washington’s role in the killing of Iranian military and political leaders.

The operation, and the Iranian threat, came days after the president began using the newer Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar for use as Air Force One. Trump flew to Turkey on that aircraft after the red, white and blue jet underwent upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars. It was fielded by the Air Force in July but lacks some of the defensive countermeasures included in the legacy Air Force One.

To transport the president out of Turkey, U.S. officials relied in part on a technique that has occasionally become public knowledge. One such mission occurred in March 2000, when President Bill Clinton visited Pakistan. With television cameras recording in Islamabad, Clinton disembarked from a plain white jet that followed the blue-and-white Air Force One, clarifying where he had been.

There have been other times in the last 30 years when Air Force One served as a decoy for the president because of a serious threat or because he was flying to a dangerous location, another U.S. official said, declining to elaborate. The legacy jet is highly secure, but also highly visible, so putting the president on an alternate plane instead can be considered safer, that former official said.

Ronald L. Rowe Jnr., a former acting director of the Secret Service, said that the president’s protection is paramount and that the details of his movements are shielded for good reason.

“We need to keep the ‘secret’ in Secret Service,” said Rowe, now with the Chertoff Group, a security advisory firm. “The public should know what the president is doing on a daily basis, but when it comes to the methods by which the Secret Service keeps the president safe, that should remain out of public view.”

When Trump first announced that he would leave Turkey on the legacy Air Force One, he touted the decision on social media as an opportunity for U.S. troops stationed in Britain to see the former Qatari aircraft. He would instead take “the former Air Force One” from Turkey for “old time’s sake,” Trump posted.

But that did not happen, according to the material reviewed by The Post and the U.S. official. Numerous people participated in the deception, some unwittingly, and journalists who thought they were travelling with the president aboard the legacy Air Force One were not notified that he had changed aircraft or made aware of the extent of the threat on Air Force One, the U.S. official said.

The new Air Force One jet gifted by Qatar departed Turkey first, early in the evening of July 8. Trump then boarded the legacy blue-and-white Air Force One at dusk, waving goodbye on camera.

To exit that plane without being seen by those uninvolved in the operation, Trump and several aides stepped aboard an airport catering truck, which was elevated plane-side using hydraulics and positioned at a door on the opposite side of Air Force One’s entrance, according to the U.S. official and other corroborating material.

Imagery captured by the news media at the Turkish airport shows a staircase on one side of the legacy Air Force One and the catering truck on the other, with its container elevated to the level of the plane. Trump arrived in a limousine, climbed the staircase and waved toward the tarmac as he boarded, video shows.

A few minutes later, as members of the White House press corps boarded near the back of the plane, a man in a suit entered the catering truck’s cab, according to media pool video of the departure process. The container was lowered into the bed of the vehicle, which then pulled away from Air Force One and drove to the smaller C-32A nearby, the video appears to show. The truck is out of view for about 40 seconds when the camera pans away and is briefly hidden while behind the C-32A’s engines.

The video shows that the container was lifted to the level of the plane for several minutes. After the container was lowered, a person in a suit stepped out of the truck’s cab, which remained at ground level, and ascended the stairs leading up to the C-32A, disappearing from the camera’s view.

The blue-and-white C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 used to transport U.S. government officials, had been flown to Turkey along with the legacy Air Force One and the former Qatari jet to support the president’s visit, the U.S. official said. Like Air Force One jumbo jets, it is emblazoned with the words “United States of America” and can be used to transport the president or vice president. But it typically does so with the “Air Force One” or “Air Force Two” call sign, not a nondescript moniker.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth boarded the C-32A separately using external stairs, part of an attempt to make the flight appear typical, according to the U.S. official and other materials reviewed by The Post. Hegseth flew with Trump to Britain on the same plane, this person said.

As journalists boarded the legacy Air Force One, White House staff directed them to close their window shades, according to a media pool report.

The New York Times reported last month that the former Qatari jet lacks the defensive capabilities of legacy U.S. presidential transport jets. That report prompted the Trump administration to take the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to several journalists in a bid to learn the identities of their confidential sources.

Administration officials cast the government’s actions against the New York Times as necessary to investigate a national security breach, while the Times described the move as an effort to avoid transparency, intimidate journalists and scare their sources. The administration later withdrew the subpoenas, acknowledging missteps in the case.

In deflecting criticism of the new jet, the White House also released a statement from the Air Force.

“The aircraft is safe, secure, and equipped with the most advanced technologies necessary to meet requirements of the presidential mission,” the statement said. “Those requirements were carefully crafted to prioritize mission over aesthetics, leaving much of the previous head of state interior layout minimally changed.”

“No risk was taken in security, safety, or mission communications, but the collective team made trades on some of the less commonly used mission sets that Boeing must deliver to support the next 40 years,” the statement added.

Though the 747 jumbo jets that carry the president are commonly referred to as “Air Force One,” the term is technically an air-traffic-control call sign for any plane on which the president is aboard.

In this instance, however, the president’s whereabouts were obscured on the C-32A flight to Britain using the nondescript call sign “Reach 18” or “RCH18,” according to a person familiar with the mission and other material reviewed by The Post.

The aviation account “Thenewarea51″ noted the C-32A’s arrival in Britain and its call sign, reporting that night that systems allowing for the aircraft to be easily tracked while in the air had been switched off. “Reach” call signs are often used for personnel transport flights and those that haul military equipment, according those familiar with the mission.

Publicly available flight tracking data shows that the former Qatari jet flew to Britain’s Mildenhall air base while bearing the call sign “SAM 33,” using a common abbreviation for “special air mission.” It landed at Mildenhall at 6.26 p.m. local time on July 8, data shows.

The legacy Air Force One plane carrying White House staff and journalists appeared on radar near Istanbul on its way to Britain, initially with no call sign listed. Despite the president not being aboard, it then took the Air Force One call sign, “AF1,” midflight and arrived at Mildenhall about 10.29 p.m. local time, the tracking data shows. A media pool report that night said the flight was “uneventful” with “no visitors to the press cabin.”

No flight tracker data could be found for the C-32A, but videos posted by the YouTube accounts RankUpAviation and Military Aviation Channel show the former Qatari jet landing, followed by a C-32A hours later at about 10.20 p.m. and the legacy Air Force One several minutes later.

Videos show the legacy Air Force One, after landing, coming to a stop in a place where the C-32A had briefly been parked. The hobbyist videos on YouTube do not show Trump exiting the C-32A or entering the legacy Air Force One, as the stairway entries faced away from the plane spotters’ cameras.

It’s not clear how Trump moved from the C-32A to the legacy Air Force One after landing, but he appeared before television cameras and descended external stairs from the legacy Air Force One about 10:56 p.m., according to a media pool report.

After greeting U.S. service members, the president embarked on the newly gifted Air Force One to travel back to Washington, with staff and press aboard after a transfer from the legacy Air Force One, at about 11.01 p.m. A social media post from the White House posted that night said that Trump had landed at the British base “aboard the former Air Force One,” and included a picture of the legacy plane.

Aboard the new Air Force One, Trump spoke to journalists for about 15 minutes, highlighting the threat Iran poses but not acknowledging the subterfuge that had occurred earlier.

Asked why reporters had been instructed to lower the window shades on the plane in Turkey, Trump said that it was “because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.” Trump said that he has a “threat all the time” against his life, and that he is “number one” on Iran’s “list.”

“But if I go, you go. Right?” Trump suggested to reporters. “Perhaps someday you want to change professions.”


-The Washington Post