Trump's Air Force One shell game: How years of decoy tactics led to a catering-truck switch
President Donald Trump's cloak-and-dagger departure from Ankara, Turkey, last month — secretly slipping off the plane he was seen boarding — was an extraordinary security maneuver, but the playbook for disguising his movements aboard Air Force One dates back years.Trump himself has long talked about the brilliance of the bait-and-switching during his first term.Trump's Dec.26, 2018, surprise Christmas trip to U.S.
troops in Iraq featured a darkened Air Force One, closed window shades and an unusual military call sign intended to obscure the presidential jet's movement.That operation was ultimately pierced by a British plane spotter, however, prompting the White House to go considerably further the following year by leaving one presidential 747 parked conspicuously in Florida while Trump secretly flew another to Afghanistan.The history gives fresh context to reports this week detailing an even more elaborate deception July 8, when Trump left a NATO summit in Ankara amid what U.S.
officials described as a credible Iranian threat against the president or his aircraft.TRUMP USED CATERING TRUCK, AIR FORCE ONE DECOY TO EVADE IRAN THREAT: REPORTThis photo shows the press boarding the Air Force One aircraft from Ankara, while a catering truck is located at the front of the plane.(Pool)Trump publicly boarded the legacy blue-and-white Air Force One before secretly exiting through another door into an airport catering truck and transferring to an Air Force C-32A, a modified Boeing 757, according to reports.The larger presidential jet then departed with journalists and some White House staff aboard, with the assumption that Trump was traveling with them."Well, it's only up to the Secret Service; I just follow what they'd like to do," Trump told reporters Tuesday night after traveling to Geneva, Ohio, for the Freedom 250 Patriot Games.
"So I go by the Secret Service and the military."They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety – but they ...