Trump's secret plane switch took place within a day of credible missile threat
President Trump secretly moved from Air Force One to another plane within a day of U.S. and Turkish intelligence picking up on an Iranian plot to fire a missile at the jet, CBS News has learned.
Updated on: August 12, 2026 / 6:37 PM EDT / CBS News
The decision to shift Mr. Trump to a different plane was made while the annual NATO conference was underway in Ankara, according to two law enforcement officials and a U.S. official. The president had flown into the Turkish capital on a newly retrofitted Boeing 747 donated by the government of Qatar, but an older white-and-blue jet that has served as Air Force One since the 1990s was also on the ground as a support aircraft.
Ahead of Mr. Trump's July 8 departure from the summit, the National Security Agency, the CIA and Turkey's MIT intelligence service picked up streams of information about a credible plot by Iran to fire a surface-to-air missile at Air Force One, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters.
There were also reports of a team in Turkey tasked with firing the surface-to-air missile at the plane, the U.S. officials said. But after more probes, no team was detected.
As the U.S.-Iran war nears the six-month mark, there is a significant ongoing threat from Iran to kill Mr. Trump, according to the officials.