Inside Biden 'Doomsday Plane,' Which He Will Fly on if Nuclear War Happens

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw major nuclear weapons drills, which, according to state TV, "practiced destroying the USA."

As tensions between Washington and both Moscow and Beijing remain high—over Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively—there are growing fears nuclear weapons could be deployed for the first time since 1945.

Russia poses an "acute" threat to the U.S., including via nuclear weapons, according to a recent Pentagon report.

If the U.S. mainland is threatened, President Jjoe Biden and other top officials could board one of four "Doomsday Planes," which are designed to act as mobile command and control posts in the event of nuclear war.

What Is a 'Doomsday Plane'?

The aircraft, officially known as the Boeing E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post (AACP), is a modified version of the Boeing 747-200 in U.S. Air Force service.

According to the Air Force, it was created to provide "a highly survivable command, control and communications center" in the event of a "national emergency" or the destruction of ground-based command centers.

The E-4B AACP is designed to resist an electromagnetic pulse, and for this reason it doesn't have any windows except in the cockpit. It comes with "nuclear and thermal effects shielding" and has a range of communications equipment, including access to the U.S. military's ultra-secure Milstar satellite system.

It first entered service in the 1970s, although three of the aircraft were initially the less technologically advanced E-4A AACP before being upgraded into E-4Bs during the early 1980s.

There is at least one E-4B AACP on standby at all times. Development of a replacement, called the Survivable Airborne Operations Center, began in 2021, though it was still in the "very early stages of development" at the start of 2022.

The E-4B AACP, which can be refueled in midair, costs nearly $160,000 per hour to operate, according to a report from Business Insider.

What's Inside the 'Doomsday Plane'?

Each E-4B AACP is able to seat up to 112 people, with the aircraft split across three levels. The middle level functions as a command center which can be used by the President and other top officials to coordinate the U.S. response to a nuclear attack. According to the Air Force, it is split into six sections, consisting of "a command work area, conference room, briefing room, an operations team work area, communications area and rest area."

The conference room is soundproof and comes with video display screens, while there are 14 bunks across the aircraft for sleeping. Most of the operations crew are stationed towards the back of the E-4B AACP.

In 2017 David Rennie, a journalist at The Economist, was allowed to visit one of the aircraft and said the interior had a retro look, although large parts remained "off limits."

Describing the aircraft's interior he said: "It has a distinctly retro, late-Cold War feel, from the secretary's padded-leather swivel seats, which would not shame a Bond villain, to the military-issue urinals bolted on the walls of the bathrooms."

He noted that these "drain straight into the sky, to avoid filling up the septic tanks on long flights."

Why Are 'Doomsday Planes' So Valuable?

Newsweek spoke to a number of nuclear warfare experts who explained why the E-4B AACPs are so important for U.S. security.

Scott Sagan, a professor at Stanford University who has written a number of books about nuclear warfare and strategy, said that the E-4B AACPs make it less likely a hostile power would launch a nuclear first strike.

"The so-called 'Doomsday aircraft' are an important component of nuclear deterrence," he said. "Maintaining the ability to have the president and secretary of defense survive an adversary's attack on Washington, by being on-board a command post aircraft, makes it far less likely that any adversary might believe a 'decapitation' attack against the U.S. could succeed."

This view was shared by Dakota Rudesill, an assistant professor at Ohio State University who specializes in nuclear control, who agreed that the aircraft help deter a nuclear strike on the U.S.

Speaking to Newsweek, he said, "The E-4Bs are well worth it, for reasons of deterrence and first-order constitutional principles.

"The ability to have our national civilian leadership mobile but still able to command U.S. nuclear forces reduces the likelihood that an adversary could carry out a successful 'decapitation' first strike," he continued. "That doubly buttresses deterrence and strategic stability: it reduces incentives for an adversary to shoot first, and reduces pressure on the U.S. to shoot first or lose national leadership and therefore the ability to retaliate."

Rudesill also said the E-4B AACPs would help maintain civilian control over the U.S. military. "The planes also serve the vital constitutional principle of civilian control of the armed forces and the fate of the country. The E-4Bs enhance the ability of our civilian leadership to remain in control of U.S. nuclear forces, even in the face of imminent or commenced adversary nuclear attack, and reduce pressure to turn over launch authority to the military.

"I cannot think of a more worthy piece of government hardware than one that allows control of nuclear weapons and decisions about survival of the nation to remain with civilian officials for as long as possible," Rudesill said.

Peter Westwick, a research professor at the University of Southern California, said the E-4B is an example of the U.S. still relying on Cold War infrastructure for its nuclear deterrent.

"The whole issue of nuclear war is newly relevant, owing to the threats made by Russia against Ukraine," he said. "Many people had forgotten about the danger of nuclear weapons amid other pressing problems, but the fundamental threat hasn't gone away.

"And the E-4B is a particular example of a general phenomena: the U.S. has many Cold War systems and institutions that are still in use, albeit amid a much different strategic, geopolitical, and technological context than the one they were designed for many decades ago."

Update 11/1/22, 12:50 p.m. ET: This story was updated to say that Peter Westwick works at the University of Southern California, not the California Institute of Technology, where he was a senior research fellow.