Washington: President Donald Trump secretly boarded an alternative plane using an airport food truck when departing the NATO summit in Turkey last month, according to a bombshell report that underlines the gravity that US officials assigned to assassination threats from Iran.

Mystery had surrounded Trump’s departure from Ankara after he apparently left the country on board an older Air Force One plane, with its maximum protections, instead of the newly gifted Boeing 747 from Qatar.

But The Washington Post reported on Monday (US time) that Trump was not on board either 747, and had, in fact, been secretly loaded onto a smaller Air Force jet – a Boeing C-32A – for the flight’s initial leg to the United Kingdom.

After boarding the 747 with cameras rolling, Trump and several aides stepped into a catering truck that had been hydraulically lifted to the plane’s height on the opposite side of where the media was camped out, the Post reported.

Pool reports from journalists on the older 747 confirmed that Trump was not spotted during the flight from Ankara. Reporters who remained on the “decoy” flight – which still used the call sign Air Force One, indicating Trump was on board – were asked to close their blinds, which is atypical.

Trump later reunited with reporters and the rest of his aides on the second leg back to Washington, where he faced questions about why he had swapped jets from the Qatari plane to – apparently – the older 747.

He initially denied there were security concerns involving the Iranians, insisting the swap was solely to allow the new, Qatari-gifted plane to depart early and visit a US military base in Britain, so that troops could admire the jet.

But under questioning, Trump said there was always a threat on his life from Iran, and that reporters were asked to close their blinds as “you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with”.

Asked for comment on the Post’s story, White House communications director Steven Cheung did not deny the secret plane swap but defended the fit-out of the controversial Qatari jet.

“As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” Cheung said.

Later last month, The New York Times reported that US officials determined there was a credible threat against Trump from Iranian proxy forces targeting him and Air Force One, citing multiple people briefed on the matter.

The Times reported that the new Qatari jet does not have all the features of the older plane. It is now expected to be taken out of service in coming months for additional upgrades.

But the revelation that Trump did not even depart Turkey on the older 747 suggests officials were deeply concerned about the possibility of an attack.

Hostilities with Iran had cooled when the president left Washington for Ankara, but resumed while he was there, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted ships in the Strait of Hormuz with missiles and drones.

Decoy flights are not unprecedented for US presidents. Bill Clinton arrived in Pakistan on an unmarked white jet in the year 2000, and used a decoy aircraft. But the secrecy surrounding the Ankara operation is unusual.

After the Times revealed concerns about the adequacy of the new Qatari plane’s protections, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas to the journalists involved – a move the Committee to Protect Journalists called a violation of press freedom.

The subpoenas were later withdrawn. But Trump argued it was legitimate to demand journalists reveal their sources when national security information was at stake.

Progress on negotiations with Iran continues to be elusive. On Monday, Trump said he would now demand Iran pay reparations for “all the people they have killed and gravely wounded” over the past 50 years, including those killed in combat or by roadside bombs, and thousands of Iranian protesters killed earlier this year.

This was in response to Iran seeking compensation for the conflict of the past five months. “I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations,” Trump said.