WASHINGTON. When President Donald J. Trump departed the NATO summit in Ankara last month, the story his traveling press corps believed was simple enough: the commander-in-chief would fly home aboard an older model of Air Force One, dispatched ahead of the opulent Qatar-gifted jet on which he had arrived.
The truth, as it now emerges, was far more elaborate — and far more revealing of the threat calculus surrounding an American president navigating a Middle East on the brink.
New reporting, first detailed by The Washington Post and corroborated by airport video obtained by The New York Post, shows that Mr. Trump was smuggled off Air Force One inside a Turkish airport catering truck and spirited to a third, unannounced military aircraft — a ruse that deceived not only Iran, but the White House press pool and members of his own staff.
A Three-Plane Shell Game
The operation unfolded on the evening of July 8, hours after Mr. Trump addressed a news conference in the Turkish capital. Footage from Ankara International Airport shows a catering truck — the kind typically used to load in-flight meals — positioned with its dock raised on the far side of the VC-25A Air Force One, away from the cameras and the press.
Mr. Trump boarded the presidential aircraft through its main entrance, only to depart through the opposite side and into the raised bed of the catering vehicle. Moments later, as the press pool filed on board, the truck lowered its bed, pulled away and drove virtually unnoticed across the tarmac to a waiting C-32A military jet — the plane that, per The Washington Post, actually carried the president to the United Kingdom.
On board Air Force One, reporters were instructed to keep their window shades closed at the request of the Secret Service. A dispatch from the pool indicates that one photographer who opened a shade was swiftly told to close it again.
The Shadow of Iran
The extraordinary subterfuge unfolded against the backdrop of an escalating confrontation with Tehran. Hours earlier, Mr. Trump had told reporters that Iranian leaders wanted him dead. That same week, funeral processions for the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei featured banners openly threatening the life of the American president.
Asked by a New York Post reporter whether he was abandoning the Qatar-donated aircraft because of threats from Iran, Mr. Trump replied only that he was “number one on the kill list” for the Islamic Republic, declining to elaborate further.
The publicly stated rationale for the plane swap was a lack of advanced defensive features on the newer jet — notably technology to deflect incoming missiles. Mr. Trump told journalists he had dispatched the Qatari plane to RAF Mildenhall ahead of him so that US service members stationed there could tour it, calling the aircraft “truly magnificent.”
Yet the new reporting raises questions that the White House has not yet addressed: whether there was a specific, credible threat to Mr. Trump's life rather than a generalized concern rooted in the broader Iran conflict. The administration has not denied The Washington Post's account, which cited two sources, including at least one US official.
A Rare Deception
The use of Air Force One as a decoy is not without precedent, but it is exceedingly rare. President Bill Clinton employed a similar ruse during a high-risk 2000 trip to Pakistan, though in that instance at least some reporters were aware of the switch beforehand, and the ploy was disclosed publicly upon arrival.
By contrast, the Ankara operation appears to have been an outright deception of the press corps — a breach of the customary transparency that accompanies presidential travel, undertaken in the name of a threat serious enough to warrant it.
It remains unclear which officials accompanied Mr. Trump in the catering truck. A president is typically flanked by a physician and staffers designated to maintain contact with the military and the White House chief of staff's office, though the composition of his party for the clandestine transfer has not been disclosed.
The episode has generated an outpouring of reaction in Washington, much of it grudgingly admiring.
“If the [Washington Post] story about Trump switching planes to return home from Turkey is true, then kudos to the Secret Service, the Air Force and the [White House],” Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under George W. Bush, wrote on social media. “If there's a credible threat against any POTUS, their job is to protect him. I'm sorry if the press felt deceived. In an extraordinary situation like that, what was the WH supposed to do? Announce the switch?”
Mr. Trump himself has not commented on the dramatic episode. The White House has not denied the account. And the image of an American president, secreted inside a catering truck on a Turkish tarmac, now stands as a stark illustration of the perils that attend the office in an age of renewed geopolitical menace.
I News Australia editor Nelly Yoa was honoured to be part of the official United States Media Delegation and Press Pool accompanying President Donald J. Trump at the NATO Summit in Ankara, and reported this story exclusively from the ground.
