In July 1991, 100 Russian children from the nuclear-contaminated Chernobyl area flew into Pease to begin attending summer camps. The Samantha Smith Foundation flight saw a Soviet Ilyushin Il-62, technically a military aircraft, land for the first time at a SAC base. Parked just a few hundred feet away, in an ironic twist, was Air Force One. Later that year, President George H. W. Bush ordered the end of Alert Missions on 1 October, ending a 15-year base ritual.