The federal government\u2019s Boeing E-4B Nightwatch \u2014 a military aircraft known, somewhat alarmingly, as the \u201cDoomsday Plane\u201d \u2014 touched down at Los Angeles International Airport this week, in what may be the famed aircraft\u2019s first-ever LAX landing.<\/p>\n
Aviation enthusiasts spotted the plane<\/a> on Thursday on its approach to LAX. Billed by the U.S. Air Force<\/a> as a \u201chighly survivable command, control and communications center.\u201d <\/p>\n The plane is equipped to serve as an airborne operations center for the president, the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the event of a disaster that wipes out command centers on land.<\/p>\n Its sudden appearance at a busy commercial airport sparked a flurry of online speculation.<\/p>\n \u201cWAR IMMINENT?\u201d one X user posted<\/a>, in one of several anxious social media responses to the plane\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n In this case, the plane was ferrying U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> to southern California as part of his monthlong \u201cArsenal of Freedom\u201d tour. <\/p>\n Hegseth spoke Thursday at the Long Beach manufacturing plant, Rocket Lab, the second stop on what the Department of Defense described<\/a> as a monthlong tour of U.S. industrial defense companies. <\/p>\n The Defense Department later posted images<\/a> on social media of Hegseth working out with the Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps at UCLA. <\/p>\n Far-right activist Laura Loomer<\/a>, Breitbart News reporter Olivia Rondeau<\/a> and media figure L. Todd Wood<\/a> accompanied Hegseth on the trip and shared photos of themselves with the plane online. <\/p>\n