Air Force One SCARE at Andrews

An emergency slide popped open on President Trump’s Qatar-gifted Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, delaying his takeoff for a Texas trip by about 15 minutes.

Story Snapshot

An inflatable emergency slide deployed on the aircraft before Trump boarded for a trip to a GOP midterm convention in Dallas.
Trump told reporters the slide was “being checked” and the delay would take “about 15 minutes.”
The slide came out of a door on the opposite side of the plane from the one Trump normally uses to board.
Trump said he was confident the jet was safe to fly, telling reporters, “Yeah, I am — or I wouldn’t be on it.”
Aviation rules allow slides to be tested while attached to a plane, a practice that matches what happened at Andrews.

Slide Deploys Ahead Of Scheduled Departure

Air Force personnel were seen working on Air Force One’s inflatable emergency slide before President Trump boarded the aircraft at Joint Base Andrews. The slide came out of the front right-hand door, opposite the left-hand door Trump usually uses to enter the plane. Reporters watched ground crews attend to the slide while Trump waited to board for his flight to Dallas.

Trump addressed the delay directly when reporters asked him about it. “They were checking it before and they just wanted to make sure,” he said, adding the process would take “about 15 minutes”. That estimate matched what happened. Contemporaneous reports described a roughly 15-minute delay before Trump boarded and the plane departed for Texas.

President Says He Trusts The Aircraft

Asked point-blank whether he felt safe flying on the plane after the slide incident, Trump gave a direct answer. “Yeah, I am — or I wouldn’t be on it,” he told reporters at Andrews. He then boarded the aircraft, and it took off for Dallas without further incident, according to on-site press coverage of the departure.

The press pool covering the event described the slide deployment as a safety check rather than an emergency evacuation. Wire reports and local outlets characterized the scene as personnel confirming the slide worked properly, not as a malfunction during flight. No passengers were aboard during an actual emergency, and the check happened entirely on the ground before departure.

Slide Testing Is A Routine Part Of Aircraft Upkeep

Federal Aviation Administration guidance shows why a slide check like this can be normal. The agency’s maintenance rules say testing an evacuation slide while it stays attached to the plane checks the whole evacuation system, including how doors work with the slide engaged. Airlines are allowed to run these functional tests on a regular schedule, not just after something breaks.

That guidance helps explain why ground crews might deploy a slide without it signaling a defect. Maintenance teams inspect slide fabric, check for air leaks, and confirm inflation systems work before signing off on an aircraft’s readiness. These checks are standard across commercial and government fleets, including planes that carry the president.

New Aircraft Draws Extra Attention

The plane involved is the Air Force One aircraft gifted to the United States by Qatar, which has drawn scrutiny since it entered service. Any visible anomaly on a newly acquired presidential aircraft tends to attract more attention than it might on an older, more familiar plane. The slide deployment became widely shared on social media within minutes, with video clips showing the inflated slide on the tarmac before Trump’s arrival at the aircraft door.

President Trump's Texas trip was delayed on Wednesday after an inflatable emergency slide on the new Qatar-gifted Air Force One deployed on the tarmac before he boarded, prompting workers to remove it.

A member of the plane's Air Force crew accidentally triggered the inflatable… pic.twitter.com/otpDfCxI5L

— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 9, 2026

Some early social media posts speculated about whether the deployment was accidental, while Trump’s own comments framed it as an intentional check. Both descriptions point to the same outcome: ground crews confirmed the slide functioned before the president boarded, and the flight left Andrews roughly 15 minutes behind schedule bound for the Texas convention.