How US President Donald Trump employed a clandestine 'decoy' Air Force One operation to secretly depart Turkiye following the NATO Summit.
Key Points
- Donald Trump secretly departed Turkiye after a NATO Summit using a decoy Air Force One due to a credible Iranian assassination threat.
- Trump was covertly transferred from the visible Air Force One jumbo jet to a smaller Air Force C-32A plane via an airport catering truck.
- Journalists and some White House staff were unaware of the deception, believing they were on the same plane as the President.
- The operation highlights significant security concerns held by US officials regarding Trump's presence in Turkiye, a country bordering Iran.
- White House Communications Director Steven Chueng defended the use of high-level security protocols, citing threats against the President.
US President Donald Trump secretly switched aircraft while flying from Turkiye to Britain last month after US intelligence flagged a credible threat linked to Iran amid escalating military tensions with Tehran, according to a media report.
Trump boarded the Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras in Ankara, but minutes later transferred to a smaller military plane - an Air Force C-32A - via an airport catering truck, typically used to load meals and other supplies, The Washington Post reported.
The Decoy Operation Unveiled
Trump had travelled to the NATO summit in Ankara in the Qatar-gifted Boeing 747-8 aircraft that was inducted into the presidential fleet last month, but he announced on social media that he would use the "former Air Force One" for the return journey.
Reporters on the old Air Force One were not informed that Trump had not flown with them from Turkiye to an air base in Britain, turning it into a decoy flight.
The US Secret Service had asked reporters to keep the aircraft windows shut as the legacy blue-and-white Air Force One took off from Ankara en route to Britain.
This is not the first time such a strategy was deployed for a US president's safety concerns.
In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton travelled to Pakistan from India in an unmarked Gulfstream aircraft instead of Air Force One as part of elaborate security measures for the brief stopover in Islamabad.
Threat to Trump or jet involving Iran
A credible threat to Trump involving Iran set the "deception operation" in motion, the Post reported, quoting an unnamed US official.
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.
The president at the time said the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some US troops at the air base in Mildenhall, in Britain, a chance to check out the new Air Force One.
The change of aircraft had raised questions about the security of the Qatar-gifted jet, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades.
After arriving at Mildenhall, news photographers captured images of Trump getting off the presidential plane, suggesting he re-boarded Air Force One out of sight of the pack of journalists who thought they were travelling with him.
Implications of the Deception Operation
After the brief visit to the base at Mildenhall, Trump boarded the new Air Force One aircraft to fly the rest of the way to Washington.
During a gaggle with reporters aboard the aircraft, Trump was asked if there were any credible threats by Iran on Air Force One.
"Well, I have a threat all the time. I'm number one on their list before you," Trump said, adding, "But if I go, you go."
While Trump was in Turkiye, the US military conducted a series of strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region.
Iran has refused to back down on its demands that the US end its blockade of Iranian ports and fulfil other conditions, and only then will Tehran consider reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran shut down the Strait after Israel and the US attacked the country on February 28.
The closure of the key waterway, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's traded oil supplies passed before the war, has kept energy prices volatile.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier emphasised that making the Strait of Hormuz secure requires an end to the United States' aggressive actions and unlawful interventions, including the naval blockade and other violations of US obligations.
Trump said in a social media post on Monday that he was directing his negotiators to include compensation from Iran for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts over the years.
The post came after Iran demanded compensation for the devastation caused to the country by the US and Israeli bombardment in the past five months.
The US president also claimed on Monday in an Oval Office exchange with reporters that the US has 100 per cent control of the Strait of Hormuz, but the situation remains complex.
