Special Air Mission 26000, also known as SAM, served as Air Force One under many former presidents, John F. Kennedy among them, according to CNN. Today, the plane sits in the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
The problem is that the plane is off-limits to visitors. If the museum decides to open it for the anniversary of JFK, visitors will be able to walk the same aisles where Jackie O sat next to the casket containing JFK on the unfortunate trip from Dallas to Washington after his assassination, the aisles where Lyndon Johnson was sworn into office and that carried President Nixon to Beijing to open U.S. relations with China.
"A person could justify that it's the most important historical airplane in the world," Jeff Underwood, an Air Force historian, told CNN. "It's a place in history that moves.
"Every time I get on board, that's what I think about," he continued.
The plane was closed to the public after the Washington imposed sequester resulted in the Air Force ordering the museum to economize, which included closing the Presidential Gallery where SAM is located. The good news is that the closure is temporary.
"People are very disappointed," Sarah Swan, an employee of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, said, as staff members are trying to determine if they should hold events to mark the anniversary of the death of JFK in November.
Last year, the exhibit drew almost 90,000 visitors.
The plane was witness to lighter events in history as well. At a campaign stop in 1964, Lyndon Johnson invited reporter Frank Cormier and two other reporters to an impromptu press conference in the bedroom of the plane, Cormier recounts in a book, telling that the president, who needed to change his clothes after giving a speech in the hot sun, "removed his shirt and trousers," while answering the reporters questions about the economy. Then he "shucked off his underwear" still talking as he was "standing buck naked and waving his towel for emphasis."
SAM was retired in 1998.
"If history itself had wings, it probably would be this very aircraft," Vice-President Al Gore said of the plane after it's last flight.
The rest of the museum is still open to the public, and admission is free. It's unknown when SAM will be reopened to the public.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
