(The Telegraph) Donald Trump hid in an airport catering lorry to be flown out of Turkey after an Iranian assassination threat, it has been revealed.
The president was secretly transferred to a military aircraft to leave last month’s Nato summit in Ankara, with Air Force One used as a high-profile decoy, according to US intelligence sources.
The White House press corps and senior aides on board the presidential jet remained unaware that Mr Trump was travelling on another aircraft during an extraordinary security operation.
American intelligence agencies had flagged a plot by Iranian proxy forces to target the president’s plane amid tensions between Washington and Tehran over the war in the Middle East.
To trick onlookers and potential attackers on July 8, Mr Trump publicly climbed the staircase of the blue-and-white Boeing 747 in full view of television cameras, waving to the crowd before stepping inside.
Minutes later, on the far side of the plane, Mr Trump and a handful of senior aides stepped into an elevated food lorry used to load in-flight meals on to the aircraft.
The container was lowered and driven across the tarmac to a waiting US Air Force C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 flying under the nondescript military call sign “Reach 18” with its primary tracking transponders switched off.
Meanwhile, journalists and unsuspecting staff boarded the decoy Air Force One. Before the plane departed, White House officials ordered reporters to close their window blinds.
David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, said it was “stunning to think that all those on the [regular] plane were sort of a decoy, and were not told that the president wasn’t on board, and that the deception was continued even after he was safely returned to Washington”.
“That’s hard for me to understand,” he added.
Mid-flight, the decoy plane switched its transponder to broadcast the “AF1” call sign to draw attention away from the US president’s actual location.
When reporters asked after the flight why the shades had to be pulled down, Mr Trump remarked: “Because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with.”
He added that he remained “number one” on Iran’s target list.
The swap was executed on the direct advice of the US Secret Service. Details of intelligence warnings regarding the threat were hidden from senior members of Congress and most White House staff.
Threat levels against Mr Trump have remained high since the US assassinated Iran’s Gen Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
The security operation also highlighted anxieties surrounding a $400m (£300m) Boeing 747-8 given to the US by Qatar last year.
Mr Trump flew into Ankara on the Qatari jet, but chose not to fly out on it amid growing concerns that its defensive missile counter-measures were inferior to those on older presidential aircraft.
To explain the swap, Mr Trump claimed on social media that he was taking the legacy 747 back “for old time’s sake”. In fact, he left Ankara on neither jet, it has now been revealed.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, defended the operation, stating: “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 – including distraction and misdirection – to address those threats.”
The covert C-32A flight landed at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk at 10.20pm. Mr Trump was covertly transferred back on board the main presidential 747 shortly before emerging on the tarmac to greet British base staff.
