President Donald Trump was preparing to leave Joint Base Andrews for a Republican midterm convention in Dallas when the emergency slide on his Qatari-gifted Air Force One suddenly inflated and spilled onto the tarmac.
Trump remained aboard Marine One as workers dealt with the problem, then emerged to assure reporters there was nothing to worry about.
But the plane remained on the ground for several more minutes, giving the internet plenty of time to notice the gap between Trump’s upbeat explanation and the unusual scene unfolding just behind him.
The incident added another unexpected complication to a plane already surrounded by controversy over its security and use.
Trump portrayed the deployed slide as a routine check and insisted the aircraft was safe to fly, even as workers deflated and removed the emergency equipment before the jet could depart.
The flight eventually left for Dallas without further incident.
Trump was forced to wait aboard Marine One for roughly 20 minutes as military personnel worked around the Boeing 747 at Andrews. The slide had deployed from the front right side of the aircraft, opposite the door Trump typically uses to board. They also brought out an older Air Force One as a backup.
When Trump finally spoke to reporters, he described the situation as little more than a routine equipment check.
“So they’re checking the slide over here,” Trump told reporters. “They were doing a check on the slide, you know?”
Asked whether there was a security concern with the aircraft, Trump again played down the incident.
“No, they were checking it before. And they just wanted to make sure. So they’ve, I guess they’ve already put it up. They want to make sure everything works perfectly.”
Trump then offered a rough estimate for how long the work would take.
“They were doing a check on the slide, you know, on the emergency, so I think it takes about 15 minutes.”
He was even more direct when a reporter asked whether he was certain the aircraft was safe to fly.
“Are you sure this plane is safe to fly?” the reporter asked during the exchange, to which Trump replied: “Yeah, I am. Or I wouldn’t be on it.”
The reassurance did little to stop the online reaction, particularly because the plane did not immediately take off after Trump’s comments.
One person mocked the confidence, writing, “That ‘or I wouldn’t be on it’ confidence lasted exactly as long as the catering cart took to arrive.”
Another questioned Trump’s explanation altogether: “Total BS. The slide deployed because of a problem. And packing it all back up isn’t a 10-minute job.”
Others described the incident as “Hilarious,” while another person added: “What a joke!”
The White House and Air Force have offered limited details about the episode, but sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that a member of the Air Force crew accidentally triggered the inflatable slide. The equipment was eventually deflated and hauled away, allowing Trump to board and continue to Dallas.
The mishap comes amid an already complicated history for the aircraft, which Qatar’s government gave to the United States and which has undergone extensive security modifications. Trump first used the jet for his trip to the NATO summit in Turkey in July. But after the summit, he secretly switched to an older Air Force One amid concerns about a potential missile threat and the newer aircraft’s security.
Video released by CNN shows the president leaving the plane and entering an elevated catering truck, typically used to load passenger meals onto aircraft.
Trump publicly described that switch as being “for old times’ sake,” while the administration later said the older aircraft had more established security upgrades. Trump was eventually moved covertly from the publicly identified Air Force One to another government aircraft, while reporters and several senior officials remained aboard the decoy plane.
After that episode, the White House said Trump would continue using the older Air Force One while the newer aircraft underwent additional security work. Trump is now planning to take the Qatari-gifted jet on an overseas trip to Ireland later this month.
For now, the latest incident ended with the plane in the air and Trump on his way to Texas. But for a president determined to project that his prized new aircraft is operating perfectly, an emergency slide sitting fully deployed on the tarmac was an unusually difficult picture to explain away.
