President Donald Trump was reportedly furious the day reports began to circulate that he had to switch planes to avoid safety hazards posed by his luxurious Qatari gift jet. But the extent of just how badly his precious prize from the Qatari royal family needed updates and the costs it required were not fully known until now.
“Trump’s February 2025 tour of the Qatari jet led to a frantic sprint inside the White House and the Pentagon,” reports the New York Times. “The administration sought to upgrade the plane in time to meet his demand for it to be ready by the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, with an accelerated retrofit.”
But an investigation by The New York Times found that the president’s push to get the luxury aircraft ready fast led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features that potentially left Trump and his Air Force One guests vulnerable.
“Several key security and safety features on the Boeing planes that have been used for decades as Air Force One are not visible on the upgraded jet, including a lower-level exit for high-risk situations, additional backup power capacity and an advanced antimissile system,” reports the Times, citing public Air Force records and photographs.
The 747-8 plane was overhauled on a compressed timeline of just about eight months, when experts said the jet needed several years for a full upgrade — costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment to train pilots to fly the 747-8 plane so quickly, on top of the approximately $400 million cost of the upgrades that the administration has publicly acknowledged.
The Times notes the Pentagon tried to mask the total price tag from Congress by snatching the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization.
“Hundreds of miles of electrical wiring and electronic components have to be shielded from an electromagnetic pulse, such as from a nuclear weapon detonation,” said the Times. “The official planes also require a second small engine — known as an auxiliary power unit — to be installed near the rear of the jet to serve as a backup for communication systems and other vital electronics gear. They also need some of the most advanced communications equipment and what the Pentagon has called a “self-defense system.”
The company overseeing Trump’s rocket-speed outfitting schedule assigned as many as 400 employees, working around the clock over three shifts, to supercharge the effort. The rushed process also led to costs far beyond the roughly $400 million in taxpayer money that the Air Force estimated would be spent to retrofit the jet. And even then, it was clear there would be some limits, including bulkhead adjustments and no upgraded safety exits. And curious the arrangement of seats offered their own safety issues.
“During that process, the Air Force had to accelerate training for its pilots, as the 747-8 has a different cockpit than the old jets. To do so, the Air Force leased an Atlas Air cargo 747-8 jet from October until February, a plane that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, to use for ‘interim pilot qualification training,’” the Times reports. “The Air Force did not disclose how much it paid for the lease.”
Because of the deadline, the Air Force moved in December to buy yet another expensive 747-8, to serve as a “dedicated trainer aircraft for aircrew” so that the Pentagon had “immediate operational readiness,” the Air Force said in a statement. It also purchased a second plane to supply spare parts.
“The total cost for both: another $400 million,” according to an anonymous Air Force official said.
