OAN Staff Lillian Mann
7:08 PM – Thursday, August 13, 2026
President Donald Trump confirmed that he was snuck off the Air Force One and switched to a C-32A plane when leaving the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, in July, in what was described as a covert operation organized by the United States Secret Service and military officials.
U.S. intelligence had previously intercepted a threat from Iran, prompting the decoy operation. The threat, which reportedly involved a potential surface-to-air or shoulder-fired missile from Iranian proxy forces, targeted the presidential aircraft leaving Turkey.
According to reports, Trump publicly walked up the stairs and boarded the blue and white 747 (Air Force One) in full view of television cameras and reporters on the tarmac in Ankara.
Aboard Air Force One were senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House staff and the traveling press pool. They were not informed of the switch and were instructed to keep the window shades of the plane lowered.
Meanwhile, in a secret transfer, Trump and a small group of aides were also moved off the plane on the side opposite the cameras using an elevated airport catering truck — the type of vehicle typically used to reload food and flight supplies, according to ABC News.
Next, the catering container transported the president across the tarmac to a smaller, nondescript U.S. Air Force C-32A.
Both aircraft departed separately and flew to a refueling stop in Britain without incident, where he reportedly sneaked back aboard the Air Force One.
When asked about details of the threat that prompted the switch, Trump brushed them off, framing the operation as a routine security decision for any president.
“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats,” he told reporters late Tuesday at Join Base Andrews in Maryland. “Any consequential president has a lot of threats.”
“It’s only up to the Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do, so I go by Secret Service and the military,” the president remarked. “They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it, I do what they say.”
Before departing the summit on July 8th, Trump posted on social media that he would fly out of Turkey on the older Air Force One for “old time’s sake.” This meant bypassing the newer jet gifted by Qatar, which had just made its international debut at the NATO event.
When reporters at a NATO press briefing asked why he wasn’t taking the new aircraft home, President Trump explained that it was being flown to a U.S. military base so service members could inspect it.
Responding to questions over the safety of those aboard the actual Air Force One, Trump replied that he believed the C-32A was at a greater risk.
“I think, actually, the plane that I flew on was at greater risk… because that would be the plane, I think, that they would be more likely to go for.”
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