Donald Trump intends to use the Boeing jet gifted by Qatar for his trip to Ireland next week, marking the first time the aircraft will leave the US since concerns were raised over whether it can adequately protect the president from attack.
The decision, a senior administration official told the Washington Post, comes weeks after the president suggested the plane would be grounded for about a month while it underwent unspecified security upgrades.
Asked to explain further, a senior administration official speaking on background told the Guardian: “We don’t comment on specific upgrades or modifications to Air Force One. We maintain a consistent posture that ensures a safe, secure and reliable capability for the president of the United States and routinely evolve the capability as required to maintain that posture.”
The jet was converted for presidential use earlier in Trump’s term after the two custom-built Boeing aircraft intended to eventually serve as Air Force One were delayed for years. Those planes, still not ready, are designed from scratch with elaborate missile-defense systems built in, which the $400m “palace in the sky” has never been confirmed to match.
Doubts about the plane’s defenses entered the collective psyche again after Trump’s last trip abroad on it, to a Nato summit in Turkey in July.
It later emerged that Trump had in fact been spirited away via a catering truck on to a separate, older aircraft after officials learned of a possible Iranian threat in Ankara, leaving the plane he had boarded to fly on as a decoy. Aboard the original, possibly targeted flight were the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent; several senior aides; and the traveling press pool – the latter, who were definitely not told about the threat, were asked to keep their window shades closed.
The episode has now been dramatized in a new Netflix mini-documentary, and has drawn widespread accusations and furor that Trump had been willing to treat his own officials and journalists as expendable for his own safety.
In the meantime, whatever security upgrades the jet has actually received since being grounded remain a mystery even now.
“It is the greatest presidential plane ever built,” the senior administration official concluded.
