Nicknamed the ‘doomsday plane’ because of it’s ability to survive a nuclear blast, America’s fleet of E-4B planes are designed to protect the president and high-ranking government officials from a nuclear attack.
President Donald Trump on Sunday warned that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to humanity and said that a nuclear war ‘could happen tomorrow’.
Trump, who is in charge of the second-largest nuclear stockpile in the world, told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Features that the use of ‘monster’ warheads may ‘end the world’, adding that the ‘level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine’.
But the US Air Force has a fleet of $223million top-secret aircraft that will serve as a mobile war room for the president and his top officials in the case of a national emergency.
The doomsday planes were designed to survive an apocalyptic-level attack, meaning that if they are deployed a deadly nuclear attack could be imminent.
The Air Force currently operates four E-4B aircraft, with at least one on alert at all times at the Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
Boeing E4 planes are also tasked with following Air Force One on the president’s overseas trips, offering a survivable command and control center in the case of an emergency.
While typically used to transport the secretary of defense, E-4B planes have unique capabilities that cannot be duplicated by any other aircraft that the Air Force uses.
The so-called doomsday planes have thermal and nuclear shielding, and are capable of withstanding nuclear blasts, electromagnetic effects and cyber attacks. They can also launch retaliatory missiles.
The aircraft have been in operation since the Cold War and allow leaders to deliver orders to the military in the event of a national emergency.
They carry special equipment and have the capability to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, and support analysts and strategists in-flight. E-4Bs have 67 satellite dishes and antennas in the ray dome, Business Insider reports.
Doomsday planes all have three decks that include a command room, conference room, briefing room, team work area, communications room, and a designated rest area featuring 18 bunks.
The planes have remained airborne and operational for as long as 35.4 hours in one stint, but they were designed to be able to operate in-flight for a full week without needing to land. The E-4B is also capable of refueling mid-air.
Doomsday planes, called National Airborne Operation Centers when they are in-flight, are operated by the First Airborne Command and Control Squadron of the 595th Command and Control Group.
They are coordinated by the United States Strategic Command and are stationed near the Offutt base.
When the president is in the US, a doomsday plane is kept with its engine running at all times and ready 24 hours a day.
If the President goes abroad, the E-4Bs follow and are known to the crews as ‘Air Force One When It Counts’. Should an emergency occur, one of the four craft is thus able to rendezvous with Air Force One almost immediately.
The Air Force has a four aircraft fleet of Boeing E4 planes, which are capable of operating with the largest crew of any aircraft in US Air Force history at 112 people, both flight and mission personnel.
They are not always used as doomsday vessels. The Secretary of Defense will occasionally travel overseas in a E-4B and hold press briefings.
The US is not the only country known to have a fleet of doomsday planes.
Russia has a Ilyushin Il-80 plane known as the ‘Flying Kremlin’, which is designed to protect President Vladimir Putin in the event of a nuclear attack, according to Euro News.
Similarly to America’s E-4B fleet, the Flying Kremlin serves as an airborne command post in the event of nuclear attack.
The lumbering Il-80 Maxdome features special communications equipment, technology that is reportedly resistant to electromagnetic pulse attacks, and can be refueled in mid-air.
The E-4B fleet is expected to reach the end of its service life in the early 2030s.
The four highly-modified Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets have become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain as parts become obsolete.
The Air Force in April last year awarded a $13billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp to develop a successor to the aging 1970s-era E-4B aircraft.
Work on the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) project will be carried out in Colorado, Nevada and Ohio and is expected to be completed in 2036.
To satisfy operational requirements, the weapon system will comprise of a commercial derivative jet hardened and modified to meet military requirements.
The Air Force eliminated Boeing from its competition to develop a successor to the E-4B Nightwatch in 2023.