page_title: Boeing E-4
section_title: September 2001 to present
hierarchical_section_title: Boeing E-4 / Operational history / September 2001 to present
caption_attribution_description: English: An E-4 on approach to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
context_page_description: The Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post, the current "Nightwatch" aircraft, is a strategic command and control military aircraft operated by the United States Air Force. The E-4 series are specially modified from the Boeing 747-200B for the National Emergency Airborne Command Post program. The E-4 serves as a survivable mobile command post for the National Command Authority, namely the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and successors. The four E-4Bs are operated by the 1st Airborne Command and Control Squadron of the 595th Command and Control Group located at Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, Nebraska. An E-4B when in action is denoted a "National Airborne Operations Center".
context_section_description: On 11 September 2001, an aircraft closely resembling an E-4B was spotted and filmed orbiting the Washington, D.C., area by news outlets and civilians, after the attack on the Pentagon. In his book Black Ice, author Dan Verton identifies this aircraft as an E-4B taking part in an operational exercise, and the exercise was canceled when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. Air traffic control recordings and radar data indicate this E-4B call sign VENUS77 became airborne just before 9:44 am, circled north of the White House during its climb, and then tracked to the south of Washington, D.C., where it held in a holding pattern. In 2008 Brent Scowcroft explained in a book, that he was on this plane to go on an inspection tour to one unspecified nuclear weapons site as chairman of a DoD team called ″End to End review″.
  In January 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced a plan to retire the entire E-4B fleet starting in 2009.  This was reduced to retiring one of the aircraft in February 2007. The next Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, reversed this decision in May 2007. This is due to the unique capabilities of the E-4B, which cannot be duplicated by any other single aircraft in Air Force service, and the cancellation in 2007 of the E-10 MC2A, which was considered as a successor to the EC-135 and E-8 aircraft, and could also perform many of the same tasks of the E-4B. As of the 2015 federal budget there were no plans for retiring the E-4B. The E-4B airframe has a usable life of 115,000 hours and 30,000 cycles, which would be reached in 2039; the maintenance limiting point would occur sometime in the 2020s.
  All four produced are operated by the U.S. Air Force, and are assigned to the 1st Airborne Command Control Squadron (1ACCS) of the 595th Command and Control Group at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.  Operations are coordinated by the United States Strategic Command.
  When the President travels outside of North America using a VC-25A as Air Force One, an E-4B will deploy to a second airport in the vicinity of the President's destination, to be readily available in the event of a world crisis or an emergency that renders the VC-25A unusable.  When President Barack Obama visited Honolulu, Hawaii, an E-4B was often stationed 200 miles away at Hilo International Airport on Hawaii Island.
  In June 2017, two of the aircraft were damaged by a tornado that struck Offutt AFB, having been struck by falling debris after the tornado damaged the hangar the aircraft were stationed in. They were out of service for eleven weeks while repairs took place.
caption: An E-4 on landing approach at Tinker AFB.
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