Executive One
US call sign of presidental plane
Executive One is the call sign designated for any United States civil aircraft when the president of the United States is on board. Typically, the president flies in military aircraft that are under the command of the Presidential Airlift Group, which include the aircraft serving as Air Force One, Marine One, Army One, Navy One and Coast Guard One (the names are not permanently applied to the aircraft: they only apply to an aircraft flying with the president aboard).
On December 26, 1973, President Richard Nixon became the only sitting president to travel on a regularly scheduled commercial airline flight when he flew on United Airlines Flight 55 from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, "to set an example for the rest of the nation during the current energy crisis" and to "demonstrate his confidence in the airlines". Nixon, first lady Pat Nixon, daughter Tricia Nixon, and 22 staffers, security, and pool purchased 13 first-class tickets at $217.64 and 12 coach tickets at $167.64 aboard the DC-10 on what was traditionally not a very busy flight, and, with an eye to security, quietly boarded the plane without fanfare to maintain secrecy prior to departure. A Nixon aide carried a suitcase-sized secure communication device on board the plane, so that the president could remain in contact with Washington in the event of an emergency.
If the president's family members are aboard, but not the president himself, the flight can, at the discretion of the White House staff or Secret Service, use the callsign Executive One Foxtrot (EXEC1F). "Foxtrot" is the phonetic alphabet designation for the letter "F", with that being the first letter of "family".
The military helicopter that normally has the call sign "Marine One" is assigned the "Executive One" call sign when it transports the outgoing president on their final flight from the Capitol, after the inauguration of their successor, as was done on January 20, 2009 for George W. Bush, January 20, 2017 for Barack Obama, and January 20, 2025 for Joe Biden.
Executive Two
Executive Two is the call sign designated for any United States civil aircraft when the vice president of the United States is on board. Typically, however, the vice president flies in military aircraft that are under the command of the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, based at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Executive One” is uS call sign of presidental plane. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Executive, call and sign, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “uS call sign of presidental plane” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1383602. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1973, 2009, 2017 and 2025.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Executive One” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.