Another Course Change in the Air Force One Story
By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer
The White House yesterday made a third approach in its attempt to land the controversy about whether a plane spotted Air Force One on its secret flight to Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day.
The story gained altitude when White House communications director Dan Bartlett walked into the media cabin on the return flight from Baghdad and announced that Air Force One had come within sight of a British Airways flight over water. The British Airways pilot, Bartlett said, radioed to ask, "Did I just see Air Force One?," and, after a pause, the Air Force One pilot radioed back, "Gulfstream 5." After a long silence, Bartlett said, the British Airways pilot seemed to realize he was in on a secret and said, "Oh."
A gripping account, except: There was no British Airways flight involved. And President Bush's pilot had no such conversation with any aircraft.
The trouble began earlier this week when British Airways told Reuters that two of its planes were in the area at the time and that neither radioed the president's plane, nor did either hear another aircraft make such an inquiry.
The White House then brought out Version 2.0: Bartlett said the pilot of a British Airways plane had the conversation with air traffic control in London, not Air Force One, while the two planes were flying off the western coast of England just before daybreak. But British Airways said that did not happen either. And Britain's National Air Traffic Services agreed.
This wrinkle forced the White House to come out with Version 3.0 yesterday. Press secretary Scott McClellan said that the aircraft inquiring about Air Force One was, in fact, "a non-UK operator." The spokesman said there had been a British Airways plane "that was in the vicinity of Air Force One as it was crossing over for a good portion of that flight." The presidential pilots thought the query "was coming from a pilot with a British accent, and so that's why they had concluded that it was a British Airways plane."
The White House released a statement from Britain's air traffic service confirming that a "non-UK operator" radioed the control center in Swanwick, England, at "0930 Zulu" time to ask if the aircraft behind it was Air Force One.
That seems to check out, but mysteries remain. Who was this "non-UK operator"? And how is it that a British Airways plane could have been with Air Force One "for a good portion" of the flight if the president's plane was averaging 665 mph -- far beyond the speed of commercial aircraft?