JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — U.S. President Donald Trump had been eagerly awaiting his trip to Texas for his Republican Party’s midterm convention. But he was briefly delayed by the deployment of an inflatable emergency slide on the new Air Force One plane that was a gift from Qatar. Trump arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland aboard Marine One on Wednesday afternoon for the scheduled trip to Dallas but was kept on the helicopter for about 20 minutes as U.S. Air Force personnel attended to the plane. The emergency slide had deployed from the front right exit, on the opposite side of the door Trump uses to board. As Trump arrived at the base, reporters accompanying him to Texas watched the former baby blue and white plane that had flown presidents for decades taxi from the hangar and stop a few hundred yards behind the gifted aircraft, which Trump had refurbished at taxpayer expense and painted red, white, dark blue and gold. Eventually, Trump emerged from the helicopter and said the slide was being tested. Asked why, he said, “They want to make sure everything works perfectly.” It was not immediately clear whether the slide was intentionally inflated during testing or whether an error caused it to inflate. But Trump said he was not worried. Asked whether he was satisfied that the plane was safe to fly, he said, “Yeah, I am -- or I wouldn’t be on it.” White House communications director Steven Cheung issued a statement that did not fully explain how the slide was deployed, and the U.S. Air Force did not respond to an emailed request for comment. “As the President has said, the slide was checked out to make sure everything works perfectly,” Cheung said. “Air Force One is on its way to Dallas so he can deliver his much-anticipated speech to a raucous and sold-out crowd.” Trump boarded as the crew continued work to deflate, detach and cart away the slide. The plane then took off and landed safely in Dallas a few hours later. In July, as Trump prepared to head back to the United States from a NATO summit in Turkey, he secretly flew out on a third U.S. Air Force plane after the Qatari jet was flown -- without him aboard -- to a military base in the United Kingdom. The older version of Air Force One was used as a decoy and carried White House and administration staff, and reporters to the base. After he arrived in the U.K, Trump got off the third plane and secretly boarded the decoy only to disembark with staff and reporters as if he had flown with them. The group then boarded the newer Air Force One for the flight to Joint Base Andrews. Trump said several weeks later that the U.S. Secret Service and the military wanted him to travel on a “different plane” due to a threat. ------ Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report. Bill Barrow and Jacquelyn Martin, The Associated Press
