President Donald Trump was whisked away from Turkey last month in a clandestine operation involving a smaller aircraft after security officials identified a credible threat to his safety. The emergency plan was triggered by intelligence suggesting that Air Force One could be targeted by a shoulder-fired missile as it departed the country following a NATO summit.
The security concerns were deemed severe enough that officials feared for the President’s life if he remained on either the legacy Air Force One or the Qatar-donated jet he had used to arrive in Ankara. According to a source familiar with the matter, the threat was considered particularly alarming because of the high level of detail the Iranians appeared to possess regarding the President’s movements and logistical arrangements during his stay in the Turkish capital.
To execute the evacuation, military and Secret Service personnel orchestrated a ruse using a catering truck to transport the President to an alternate jet. Video analysis confirmed that a catering vehicle was positioned alongside the main aircraft before the President’s motorcade arrived. Once Trump boarded, the truck’s container was lowered and moved to a smaller C-32A aircraft, where he was joined by a select group of aides and officials.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accompanied the President on the smaller plane, while other high-ranking officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—remained on the larger Boeing 747. Also traveling with the President were executive assistant Natalie Harp, deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino, and director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta. Most passengers on the larger jet were unaware that the President had already departed the aircraft.
The larger plane took off at approximately 8:44 p.m. local time, passing the smaller jet as it taxied for departure. Upon landing at a military base in Britain, the President was seen transferring to a Qatari plane for the final leg of his journey to Washington, accompanied by Hegseth, Nauta, and Harp.
Addressing the event on Tuesday, Trump confirmed the maneuver but dismissed the danger. “I don’t worry about anything, to be honest,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “Whatever it is, you know my attitude? Whatever. I just follow what they’d like to do. So I go by Secret Service. And the military. 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.”
The incident occurred against a backdrop of heightened tensions with Iran, which has long threatened retaliation for the 2020 drone strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani. During the summit, Iranian officials and state-aligned figures, including parliament member Hamid Rasaei, publicly suggested that the President should be targeted while in the region. While Israel had shared intelligence regarding a new assassination plot, some U.S. officials remained skeptical, viewing the report as a potential effort to influence American policy toward Iran. The report also notes that now without the president on board, took off at roughly 8:44 p.m, the larger plane. The report also notes that both Rubio and Bessent remained behind on the blue and white Boeing 747 along with other White House staffers, military personnel and members of the press, according to US officials, when it came time to switch planes. The report also notes that the US government has long warned that Iran may try to kill Trump in retaliation for the 2020 drone strike he ordered which killed a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani. The report also notes that but said it was believed to be serious in part because of how specifically the Iranians seemed to know details of Trump’s arrangements in Turkey, the person declined to say where information about the threat originated. The report also notes that the Turkish capital, at a luxury chain hotel downtown, and traveled several times between the hotel and the summit venues, trump spent one night in Ankara. The report also notes that but not all would join the president when he left. The report also notes that crowds of Iranians called for Trump’s death during funeral proceedings for the slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran, in the days before Trump’s visit to Turkey. The report also notes that hamid Rasaei, a conservative cleric and member of Iran’s parliament, wrote when Trump was in Turkey that the US president should be targeted while in the region: “My suggestion is this: Now that the bastard Trump is within our reach and has come to Turkey for the NATO summit, we should officially and without hesitation target the location where Trump and several other criminals are staying in Turkey with a missile.”.
