US President Donald Trump secretly transferred to a smaller aircraft while departing the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, last month, using a catering truck as cover to avoid what US intelligence assessed as a credible Iranian assassination threat. The extraordinary security operation, first reported by the Washington Post and confirmed by multiple outlets including PBS NewsHour, was unknown to most White House staff and the journalists travelling with the president, who believed Trump remained aboard Air Force One for the flight to Britain.

The sequence of events on the evening of 8 July unfolded with careful choreography. Trump boarded the legacy Air Force One — a Boeing 747 that has served as the presidential aircraft since 1990 — in full view of television cameras at Ankara's airport, then disappeared through the plane's door. Minutes later, he was moved via a catering truck, the kind routinely used to load food and supplies onto aircraft, to a US Air Force C-32A — a modified Boeing 757 typically used to transport the secretary of defence or other senior officials — parked nearby. The legacy Air Force One then took off, carrying more than a hundred aides, officials and journalists who were told to keep their window shades closed, a precaution normally reserved for flights over conflict zones. Trump, meanwhile, flew separately to RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, England, on the smaller aircraft. After landing, he spent roughly 40 minutes — apparently the time needed to secretly board the legacy plane — before descending its steps in view of cameras as though he had been aboard all along. He then boarded the newly refurbished Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 for the return flight to Washington.

The deception has drawn sharp political and ethical criticism. Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the operation