An emergency inflatable slide suddenly deployed from the right side of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday afternoon, stalling President Trump's departure for the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas as he sat waiting inside Marine One. The slide rolled out around 2:20 p.m. ET, according to a White House pool report, after Trump's helicopter touched down. Ground crews immediately moved to deflate and remove it from the aircraft, a $400 million Boeing 747-8 that Qatar's royal family gifted to the president last year.
Trump waited inside Marine One before stepping out to address reporters about the delay, as reported by The Independent. He told reporters they were doing a check on the slide, adding that the process typically takes about 15 minutes, and said he was sure the aircraft was safe to fly. As reported by CBS News, the old Air Force One arrived as a backup while workers dealt with the extended slide. According to a Federal Aviation Administration advisory circular dated April 4, 2003, an evacuation slide that inadvertently falls from an aircraft must be inspected under the manufacturer's instructions before further use.
A Jet Still Finding Its Footing
The Boeing 747-8 has only been in presidential service since Trump's first flight aboard it in July. The Pentagon modified the aircraft after Qatar's royal family gifted it to the president, and per reporting from The Guardian, it was accepted as an interim presidential aircraft meant to bridge the gap until the Air Force takes delivery of its long-delayed official next-generation fleet. That replacement, the VC-25B, isn't expected until mid-2028 — roughly four years behind schedule — due to supply chain and engineering delays, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. The VC-25B program has also faced delays. The program has also faced schedule risks.
The jet's foreign origin has kept it under a magnifying glass. The aircraft underwent retrofits before entering service in July. Wednesday's slide malfunction lands squarely in that period of heightened scrutiny over the plane's defensive capabilities.
Not the First Air Force One Scramble This Summer
Wednesday's tarmac drama echoes an earlier security scare involving the presidential fleet. The Independent, citing The New York Times, reported last month that Trump secretly departed a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, in July by using a catering cart to transfer from Air Force One to another military aircraft, after officials received a credible Iranian assassination threat. The legacy Air Force One was used as a decoy carrying press and staff during that departure — a maneuver Hoodline detailed in its report on the NJ golf club jet interceptions.
Slide malfunctions themselves are hardly unique to presidential travel. AeroXplorer reported that inadvertent slide deployments during pre-departure ground operations have recently disrupted commercial widebody flights, including a British Airways flight in Montreal that was delayed for more than three hours. Hoodline also covered a similar mishap in August when an American Airlines slide deployed at O'Hare. An accidental slide deployment on a Boeing widebody typically requires immediate removal. Similar inadvertent slide deployments have also been reported on other aircraft.
High Stakes for a Historic Convention
The delay came as Trump prepared to fly to Dallas for the two-day Republican Midterm Convention, a major Republican gathering with lawmakers and candidates expected to participate.
The convention's timing ahead of the November midterms made Wednesday's tarmac holdup an unwelcome hiccup on the way to a politically charged showcase. Whether the slide incident draws further attention to the jet's costly retrofit schedule remains to be seen, but for now, ground crews at Joint Base Andrews cleared the aircraft for its flight south.
