Bush's Secret Visit to Iraq | National Geographic

November 2003 Colonel Tillman prepared to fly the president into the heart of the Iraq war to share Thanksgiving with American troops to prevent an insurgent attack on the president no one except those on board could know his destination in advance this mission the president wanted to be completely secret I think probably in the end there was probably maybe five of us that had a really good idea of what was going to happen even air traffic control had to be kept in the dark if any hint of the mission slipped out the operation would be scrubbed how do I ask you to non-stop covert mission without alerting anybody of what we were doing how do you make the president disappear for a few days the president the most closely watched man on earth needed to vanish for 48 hours to establish a cover story the trip started at his ranch in Texas the first family had gathered for Thanksgiving but the president would not be there for dinner very few people in Crawford at the ranch knew that I'd be leaving this is very much a cloak-and-dagger operation passenger one boarded secretly in Waco Texas but the jet couldn't fly nonstop to Iraq without refueling to keep the trip is Swift and secret as possible the president's plane touched down outside Washington at Andrews and pulled into the hangar inside the second presidential plane was standing by fueled up for immediate departure we did everything inside the hangar because we had to worry about the tower watching us or anybody outside you know everyone's blood pressure was up it was very interesting the you know the kind of the choreography inside the hangar when we left the president gets off he's got his polo shirt on he's got a baseball cap on he walks off one airplane walks on another airplane everyone all the maintenance guys recognized it was the president as well as our cops inside they all knew oh my god it's the president they knew at that point some was going on minutes after arrival the president was headed back into the air but as far as the rest of the world know the presidential plane never took off when we left here we used a different call sign so we weren't Air Force one we filed a flight plan for a Gulfstream type of aircraft okay so I changed the identity of our airplane we changed the modes to codes and everything associated with the movement of an airplane so once it got airborne all the center would see is that there's an airplane they didn't know it was a 747 six hours out all systems go a bogus Gulfstream jet heads east but in the skies over England a chance encounter almost blows the planes cover we're going over London England another pilot had gone by and seen the airplane and asked if it was Air Force One and the controller dutifully said no sir it's a Gulfstream type aircraft well to say that we all missed the heartbeat is an understatement because all we needed was that civilian pilot to say so that's not a Gulfstream aircraft that's a 747s blue-and-white sure looks like Air Force one that could have been a reason to terminate the operator

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 948,882

Rating: 4.74226 out of 5

Keywords: bush, president, air force one, onboard, security, iraq, war, airplane, 747, intellige, national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, documentary

Id: 9we7Yx-z8C0

Length: 3min 26sec (206 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 16 2009