San Antonio \u2014 A gift from Qatar to President Trump, or rather to the Pentagon, is still in Texas.<\/p>\n
But don’t expect that plane to carry the president anytime soon, before it undergoes a full transformation.<\/p>\n
That has to happen before it is considered secure enough for the president to use.<\/p>\n
We spoke exclusively with a national security expert about what it takes to recertify and reconfigure it to be worthy to be called Air Force One.<\/p>\n
This is no simple handoff; a wide-bodied jet, an unconditional gift by Qatar to the Pentagon, will now have to be “completely dismantled and rebuilt from the inside out to make sure no spy equipment is on board,” said national security expert Patricia Driscoll. She explains this won’t be fast or cheap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis plane is going to end up being completely torn down and rebuilt, all of it,” said Driscoll. “So the interior\u2019s going to be taken out, all of the communications lines, the electronics, every bit of it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Driscoll, who has more than 20 years of experience as a security expert, says the FAA must certify every part, down to the fireproof carpet. A Designated Airworthiness Representative, or DAR, will comb through years of maintenance records from Boeing, the original manufacturer, which will also be stepping in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat their job is going to be is to comb through the books of this aircraft from the making of it,” said Driscoll. “Which, first of all, was certified by Boeing. And then they’re going to look through all\u2014every single thing that ever was done to this aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Driscoll says the aircraft\u2019s reconfiguration won\u2019t just be cosmetic. It will be retrofitted with classified communication systems, presidential workspaces, and security that blocks any outside eavesdropping or remote access.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not like sweeping a room in a building,” she said. “This is a complete tear-down. You\u2019re not just checking things. You\u2019re removing them entirely.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Driscoll, who has experience sweeping planes, says when it comes to the president, we’re not talking about style, cabinet colors and carpet choices. We’re actually talking about safety and technology… as this 748-8 isn’t only a symbol of the U.S. presidency, it is also a flying command center with an unlimited range of travel in case of an attack on the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are actually talking about configuration, security, how he communicates, how the plane is tracked, everything that goes on,” Driscoll said. “So nothing on this aircraft has any of those things. It is definitely not set up at all in how he would utilize it on a daily basis. You know, the plane that he has right now is old, and it is configured old, and it was, it was built at a different time, different types of technologies. Yes, we\u2019ve updated a lot of stuff, but this new, this new aircraft will have the opportunity to be purpose-built for the way that the president operates today and how people who travel with him operate today and basically think it’s an opportunity to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Driscoll also tells us that until the FAA, Boeing and national security teams sign off, the plane will stay grounded\u2014because when it comes to presidential security in the sky, there are no shortcuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if someone was the slickest, most awesome person in the world, and put something in the paint, you know, there\u2019s ways that we can make sure that that will never transmit in or out, and you\u2019re not going to hear anything,” she said. “But it\u2019s nuts to think that they would actually leave that as it is.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Driscoll tells us that she would have sent this plane back to Seattle to have it torn down and rebuilt there.<\/p>\n
Yami Virgin, FOX San Antonio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio \u2014 A gift from Qatar to President Trump, or rather to the Pentagon, is still in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[26469,19031,5229,29427,14944,65902,7332,6673,65903,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-101299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-air-force-one","9":"tag-aircraft","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-faa","12":"tag-national-security","13":"tag-patricia-driscoll","14":"tag-pentagon","15":"tag-qatar","16":"tag-reconfiguration","17":"tag-san-antonio","18":"tag-sanantonio","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114934937325012993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}