Donald Trump arrived at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk last month aboard a jet other than the Air Force One he had been filmed boarding an hour earlier in Ankara, after a credible Iranian threat to his life prompted what a United States official has described as a deception operation.

The account was first reported by the Washington Post on Monday, drawing on documentation it reviewed, a US official aware of the operation and a second person familiar with the president’s travel. A US official with knowledge of the plan separately confirmed it to the New York Times.

Mr Trump had flown to Turkey for the NATO summit on the Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar and refitted by L3Harris Technologies, and announced on Truth Social before leaving that he would return on the older baby blue Air Force One, saying it was for old time’s sake, while the new aircraft went ahead to Mildenhall so that American personnel stationed there could tour it.

Television crews filmed him boarding the older jumbo at Ankara Esenboga on 8 July. Minutes later, according to the Post, he and a small group of aides left through a door on the far side of the aircraft and into a hydraulic catering truck, the sort of vehicle that raises meal trolleys to the cabin doors before departure, which then carried him to a waiting C-32A, the military version of the Boeing 757 more commonly used as Air Force Two.

The travelling press corps, who believed they were flying with the president, were asked to keep the blinds down in the press cabin. Some White House staff also thought he was on board.

The C-32A landed at Mildenhall at about 10.20pm local time, with the older Air Force One and the media arriving minutes afterwards. Photographers then recorded Mr Trump walking down the steps of the jumbo at 10.56pm, having re-boarded it out of sight, and the Post said it was not clear how he was moved between the two aircraft.

Asked to comment on the third aircraft, the White House did not address the operation directly. Steven Cheung, the communications director, said in a statement that many enemies of America had their sights on the president and that the administration used every tool at its disposal to address those threats, adding that the Qatari-donated jet had been fitted with high-level security protocols.

The United States carried out substantial strikes inside Iran while Mr Trump was in Turkey, following attacks on commercial shipping in the region, and intelligence officials had warned before the summit of a possible attack on the president or his aircraft.

Mildenhall, home to the 100th Air Refuelling Wing, is one of two American airbases in Suffolk alongside Lakenheath and has long served as the transatlantic staging point for presidential and senior government travel into Europe.

Bill Clinton used the same approach in March 2000, flying into Pakistan on an unmarked executive jet while a formal Air Force One landed as a decoy.