Watch: Rare „Naked” 'Doomsday Plane’ Spotted Flying Over Texas
A U.S. Air Force E-4B Nightwatch, ominously dubbed the „Doomsday Plane,” was spotted soaring over Fort Worth, Texas, on a mysterious mission that has left onlookers buzzing, TWZ reports. The jet, rarely seen by civilians, turned heads with its eerie „green zinc chromate coating,” giving it a stripped-down, “naked” appearance.
Tori Mae FontanaThe secretive aircraft serves as a flying command post for the President and top military brass, equipped to direct nuclear strikes and manage critical operations in times of crisis. What was it doing over Texas? The Pentagon isn’t saying, but the sighting of this high-stakes war machine has sparked intense curiosity.
Aviation photographer Tori Mae Fontana shared images on social media of the elusive E-4B Nightwatch, snapped as it departed Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth on Thursday. The mysterious aircraft was operating under the callsign Spice 98, the news outlet said.
I was able to recover this video after my phone overheated. Right before she started taxiing out. What a beauty. https://t.co/mqLoPzUI1B pic.twitter.com/GsKTw4AaIs
— Tori Mae Fontana (@LensOfMae) September 17, 2025
„So it was here at International Aerospace Coatings (IAC),” Fontana told TWZ in an interview. „They have painted E-4s before. I know they have previously had a Boeing contract. I am assuming it’s still current.”
“I am also assuming it went back to San Antonio because Boeing has the contract for the E-4 maintenance,” she added.
TWZ reports:
Online flight data shows that at least one E-4B, with the serial number 73-1676, has been at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, since September 2024. That aircraft was tracked flying on August 23 and again on August 28 using the Spice 98 callsign. Boeing performs depot maintenance on the Nightwatch jets, as well as the Air Force’s two Boeing 747-200-based VC-25A Air Force One aircraft, at Kelly Field, which sits adjacent to Lackland Air Force Base.
Ensuring the readiness of the E-4B fleet, as well as keeping their highly sensitive systems up to date, is extremely important given the critical role the jets play as part of the U.S. government’s broader continuity of government plans. Those mechanisms are in place to ensure that national-level authorities, including the ability to launch nuclear retaliatory strikes, remain functional in the face of any contingency, as you can read more about here.
The U.S. Air Force is moving fast to replace its aging E-4B Nightwatch „Doomsday Planes” with cutting-edge E-4C Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) jets. The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is spearheading the project, converting newer Boeing 747-8 airframes bought secondhand from Korean Air.
“We did a pretty exhaustive analysis of the worldwide fleets of aircraft, different variants, different ages, and different owner/operators, and settled on the optimal solution for the DoD [Department of Defense] as the 747-8i aircraft,” Brady Hauboldt, SNC’s Vice President of Aviation Strategic Plans and Programs, explained. “There are some additional complexities involved with the [747-8F variant] freighter aircraft that caused us to move away from those. Without getting into the specific details of why, the passenger aircraft were [determined to be] optimum.”
SNC is undertaking the SAOC work at a plant in Dayton, Ohio, and has already started “early risk reduction flight testing” to “ensure on-time delivery of new aircraft to the USAF.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/19/2025 – 19:40
