In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One 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, according to a US official and the corroborating material reviewed by The Post.
Trump boarded Air Force One via the stairs, crossed over to the catering truck – which was hydraulically elevated to a service door on the other side of the plane. The President was then lowered to ground level and driven to the C-32A nearby.
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 US 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 manoeuvre meant that Trump’s actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior US 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.
A spokesman for the Pentagon referred questions to the White House. A Secret Service spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Publicly, the White House has repeated its account that the President left Turkey on the old Air Force One before Trump began using the former Qatari jet.
In the first hours after the terrorist attacks on September 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 US security officials had about his safety leaving Turkey amid hostilities with Iran. Turkey, a key US 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 US 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.
To transport the President out of Turkey, US officials relied in part on a technique that has occasionally become public knowledge. One such mission occurred in March 2000, when then-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 past 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 US official said, declining to elaborate.
Ronald L Rowe Jr, 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.
He said: “We need to keep the ‘secret’ in Secret Service. 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.”
Numerous people participated in the deception, some unwittingly – journalists who thought they were travelling with the President were not notified that Trump had changed aircraft or made aware of the extent of the threat on Air Force One, the US official said.
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 US official and other materials reviewed by The Post. Hegseth flew with Trump to Britain on the same plane, this person said.
Videos show Air Force One landing in the UK and coming to a stop in a place where the C-32A had briefly been parked.
It’s not clear how Trump moved from the C-32A to Air Force One after landing, but he appeared before television cameras and descended external stairs from Air Force One about 10.56pm, according to a media pool report.
After greeting US service members, the President embarked on the new Air Force One to travel back to Washington, with staff and press aboard after a transfer from the legacy Air Force One.
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.
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