White House offers new story about pilot

Dec 4, 2003 | The White House offered its third version Thursday of a pilot who spotted Air Force One while it flew to Iraq -- a sighting that if publicly disclosed would have scrubbed President Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad.

The White House said the British accent of a pilot had led the Air Force One crew into thinking it was a British Airways operator who saw the presidential Boeing 747 on its surprise flight.

The London area air traffic control center, known as the National Air Traffic Services, said on Thursday that it was not a British Airways pilot who spotted the plane. The control center did not identity which airline was involved.

"The pilot of the aircraft asked whether the aircraft behind (him) was Air Force One,'' the London control center said in a statement released by White House press secretary Scott McClellan. "After consulting the flight plan of those aircraft in the sector at that time, the center responded that the aircraft was a Gulfstream 5.''

For security reasons, Air Force One filed a flight plan identifying itself as a a Gulfstream 5, a much smaller airplane.

The sighting occurred Thursday morning off the western coast of England.

Earlier, White House communications director Dan Bartlett had said a British Airways plane radioed the tower in London and reported the apparent sighting. Before that, Bartlett had left the incorrect impression that the conversation had taken place between the British Airways pilot and the pilot of Air Force One, Col. Mark Tillman.

Asked about the legalities of filing a phony flight plan, McClellan said: "The American people understand the importance of not compromising security, not only for the president of the United States, but for those on board the plane and those on the ground as well,'' McClellan said. "These are unusual circumstances.''

He said, "We kept the trip a secret because of the security demands, and I think the American people fully understand that.''

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