Syracuse, N.Y. — A plane that looks an awful lot like Air Force One paid a visit to Syracuse on Friday.
The Air Force C-32, the military’s version of the Boeing 757 passenger jet, flew out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Friday morning and headed straight for Syracuse during an apparent training flight.
The aircraft spent about an hour flying circles around the city and its northern suburbs and made several low passes over Syracuse Hancock International Airport, according to the flight tracking site adsbexchange.com. It then headed to Atlantic City International Airport, where it was doing the same thing early Friday afternoon.
Anyone who spotted it could be forgiven for thinking it was the president’s plane. It looks like a smaller version of Air Force One, sporting the same light blue-and-white paint scheme as the president’s Boeing 747, including the words “United States of America” on the fuselage and the American flag on its tail.
This was not the first time an Air Force C-32 with identical markings has visited Syracuse. One paid Hancock a visit in June 2021, where its crew practiced takeoffs and landings.
The jet is part of a fleet of planes the Air Force uses to fly senior government officials, including the vice president and secretary of state, around the world. They are sometimes used in place of Air Force One when the president travels to smaller airports that cannot accommodate the jumbo jet normally used to fly the president. (When it’s carrying the president, it is called Air Force One.)
Military planes from throughout the Northeast frequently use Hancock to practice takeoffs and landings — often called touch-and-go’s — because the skies around Syracuse are much less crowded than they are around major metropolitan areas. The Syracuse Regional Airport Authority confirmed that the C-32 performed touch-and-go’s during its visit to Hancock on Friday.
Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
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