WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump secretly flew out of Turkiye last month on a smaller plane than previously known due to an assassination threat from Iran, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

According to an anonymous US official who spoke to the Post, Trump boarded an Air Force One jet in Ankara on July 8, but then moved into a catering container attached to the plane.

The container then ferried him to a smaller C-32A aircraft that flew him to Britain, while media and some officials were led to believe Trump was still on the bigger jet.

The Iranian threat had previously been reported by US media as the reason that Trump did not fly out of Turkiye aboard the new Boeing 747-8, gifted to the United States by Qatar, which he had used to fly into the country.

Trump, who was in Ankara for a Nato summit, said at the time he would be taking the older Boeing 747 so that members of the US military at an airbase in Britain could tour the new plane.

However, several US media outlets, including the New York Times, reported that a threat from Iranian proxy forces had prompted the switch.

Journalists on the old plane out of Ankara were also told to keep their window blinds down — a step normally reserved for war zones — furthering suspicions of security concerns.

The plane swap prompted renewed scrutiny of the Qatar-gifted jet, which The Times reported did not have the same security features as the older jet, including anti-missile defences.

Qatar’s royal family donated the luxury airliner last year after Trump complained about the state of the two aging Boeing 747 jets that had served as Air Force One since 1990.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2026