Near Misses aboard Presidential Planes
PRESIDENTS have been trav- eling by air ever since President
Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first sitting president to fly in an airplane in 1943. Since that time, thanks to the skill and dedication of US Air Force mainte- nance personnel and pilots, presidential planes have enjoyed exemplary safety records. As with all air travel, however, there are inherent dangers associated with presidential air travel, and on sev- eral occasions, things have gone wrong or have been on the verge of going wrong with presidential flights.
Perhaps the first mishap of conse- quence took place in 1943, while Presi- dent Roosevelt was returning from a wartime conference in the Iranian capi- tal of Tehran. It was the second major journey FDR had made by air, and the emergency involved the plane’s flaps, which malfunctioned during a landing on the island of Malta in the Mediterra-
President Franklin D. Roosevelt sits with General Dwight D. Eisenhower as they make their way by plane to a wartime conference in Tehran, Iran, in 1943.
nean Sea. The flaps were meant to act as air brakes, but they failed to deploy, leaving the president’s pilot with no choice but to land the plane at an unusually high speed. In the end, the pilot was able to land the plane safely, and by all accounts FDR showed great poise throughout the entire episode.
Another dangerous event in presidential air travel took place in 1945, and, once again, it involved President Roosevelt’s plane. This time, FDR was flying to a war- time conference in Yalta, in the Soviet Union, when his fighter escort spotted a Soviet fighter on the same flight path as the president’s plane. Thinking the Soviet air- craft was preparing for an attack, the leader of the American fighter escort called for his planes to engage the Soviet fighter. Not wanting to create an interna- tional incident, however, the pilot of the president’s plane called off the attack and instead dove out of the
The Jet Age
President Eisenhower’s two terms in office served in many ways as a bridge between two very different generations of presidential air travel. When Eisenhower began his first term in office in 1953, he flew, as did his two predecessors, in propeller-driven aircraft. His first plane, a propeller- driven Lockheed Constellation, was known as the Columbine II. (Eisen- hower’s personal airplane while he was in the military had been called the Columbine and was named after the state flower of Colorado, one of the
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
Soviet aircraft’s flight path. When the Soviet plane didn’t follow, it was apparent that the president’s plane was not in any danger and that quick thinking on the part of the president’s pilot had averted what could have turned into a diplomatic disaster.
Perhaps the most serious danger a US president has ever faced aboard a presidential plane, however, oc- curred in 1960, at the end of President Eisenhower’s second term in office. On this occasion, Eisenhower was returning from a goodwill trip to South America aboard his new Boeing 707 Stratoliner and was en route to Puerto Rico from Uruguay when the plane lost the use of one of its four jet engines. The president’s pilot was able to safely divert the aircraft to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, and after landing there, Eisenhower was flown back to Washington aboard another plane, safe and unharmed. —JS
President Eisenhower’s second presidential plane, photographed here during a flight in 1954, was a Lockheed Super Constellation named Columbine III.
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PHOTO: ©UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD/CORBIS PHOTO: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS
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