US President Donald Trump’s flight to Dallas was briefly delayed on Wednesday after an emergency inflatable slide deployed from Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews.
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Trump was headed to Dallas for the republican midterm convention to deliver the keynote address on Wednesday night.
He told the reporters that the personnel were checking the emergency slide.
“They’re checking the slide over here. And I think it's gonna take 15 minutes,” Trump said, adding that the aircraft was safe to fly.
A person briefed on the situation told ABC News that military personnel had accidentally triggered the slide.
When asked why the slide was being checked and whether there was a security concern, Trump said personnel wanted to make sure it “works perfectly”.
Emergency slides are not typically checked by deploying them before departure because removing and replacing them is a time-consuming process.
The slide was later removed from the aircraft and hauled away on the back of a pick-up truck before the plane took off for Dallas. Trump’s previous Air Force One was also brought out as a backup option.
The newly modified aircraft, a gift from the Qatari royal family worth $400 million, has faced questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts over the unprecedented foreign gift.
Trump had earlier described the approximately 14-year-old aircraft as “the world's most luxurious plane”. In July, he said the plane would be “maxed out”, with the process expected to take about a month.
