President Trump’s departure to the Republican midterm convention was delayed as his Qatari-gifted jet was dealing with a problem with its emergency slide, raising concern about the cause of the delay.
The president sat in Marine One on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews for about 20 minutes while the slide was deployed from the new blue, red, white and gold jet and stayed out, extending from the plane to the tarmac.
Confusing matters, the older blue and white 747 that serves as Air Force One rolled up and stopped a couple hundred meters behind the Qatar-gifted plane. The old Air Force One then deployed its front and rear steps.
Trump downplayed the matter. When he finally exited his helicopter he told reporters at JBA that staff were just testing the slide.
“They were doing a check on the slide, you know, the emergency. So I think it takes about 15 minutes,” he said.
“They want to make sure everything works perfectly,” he said.
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In August, the president, when departing a NATO meeting in Turkey, slipped off of his new plane via a catering truck to board a different military aircraft for the departure. Reporters traveling with him were unaware of the bait-and-switch.
The slide was deployed from the right-hand-side door of the Qatari plane, opposite the left-hand-side door that Trump normally enters. That right-hand door was the one in Turkey that the president slipped out of amid a threat from Iran.
Trump, however, expressed his confidence in the new plane despite the fact it doesn’t have some of the anti-defense measures as the older Air Force One.
“Yeah I am,” he responded when asked if he was sure it was safe. “Or I wouldn’t be on it.
