A presidential aircraft, dubbed the ‘Doomsday Plane’, was recently spotted at the Los Angeles airport, sparking a flurry of reactions on social media.
The ‘Doomsday Plane’, a presidential aircraft, was spotted recently at the Los Angeles airport (LAX), sparking a flurry of reactions online. The sighting came at a time of tension after US forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife in their home country and flew them to the US.
The Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command was filmed landing in LA on Thursday, as per TMZ. This is the plane President Donald Trump would travel in amid a nuclear war, which is why the sighting has fueled speculations.
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“And the doomsday plane meant for nuclear war just showed up at LAX,” one person remarked. Another added, “BTW - the doomsday plane was seen landing at LAX today, whatever that means.”
Why did the ‘Doomsday Plane’ land at LAX?
Amid speculations about why the ‘Doomsday Plane’ landed at LAX, one report has shed some light. It claims that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Laura Loomer were on board. Loomer, the right-wing activist, had shared on X that she'd be accompanying Hegseth. An official Department of War notice says that Hegseth was to travel to LA to visit defense industry leaders.
However, an official reason is not known. Grok, X's AI chatbot, said “The E-4B's capabilities are indeed built for extreme scenarios, but its landing at LAX on Jan 8 appears routine based on flight trackers—no official alerts of crisis from the Air Force or White House.”
The ‘Doomsday Plane’ is actually part of several crafts that are always on alert and can survive a nuclear blast. These planes are also protected against an electromagnetic pulse. As per the US Air Force, “In case of national emergency or destruction of ground command and control centers, the aircraft provides a highly survivable command, control, and communications center to direct U.S. forces, execute emergency war orders, and coordinate actions by civil authorities.”
Shuvrajit has over seven years of experience covering US, India, and world news. An English Literature postgraduate from Jadavpur University, Shuvrajit started off covering entertainment, gaming and all things pop culture. There were brief periods away from the media industry, with short stints in content marketing, ed-tech and academic editing. However, the newsroom beckoned and over the last few jobs, Shuvrajit has exceedingly focused on team functioning as well, including tracking news and assigning tasks, working on everyday breaking news, framing detailed coverage plans, and creating immersive and data-driven stories. In his time as a digital journalist, he has covered a Lok Sabha election, multiple state elections, Union Budgets and award ceremonies. He has also helped in planning content for company event panels in the past. For work, Shuvrajit enjoys dabbling with data visualization, editing tools, and AI chatbots and attempts to incorporate AI workflows in everyday tasks. He is deeply interested in geopolitics, sports, films and music. Prompting is a new fascination for Shuvrajit now. Apart from that, he can be found doom-scrolling, sharing memes, or cheering on his favorite football team.Read More