JANUARY 10, 2025 — Former President Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived U.S. president, passed away on Dec. 29, 2024, at the age of 100.
As commander in chief from 1977 to 1981, Carter became the seventh president who used Joint Base Andrews – then Andrews Air Force Base – as a hub for presidential air travel. During his administration, “Air Force One” was a VC-137C, which was a modified Boeing 707. Carter arrived at or departed from Andrews nearly 200 times during his presidency.
His first trip abroad was May 5 to 10, 1977, to the United Kingdom to attend an economic summit meeting with several European heads of government.
On Sept. 5, 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin flew into Andrews to meet with Carter at Camp David. This historic proceeding lasted 13 days and became known as the Camp David Accords, paving the way for the Egypt-Israel peace treaty signed the following year.
In June 1979, he flew to a summit in Vienna, Austria, to meet Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union. There, they signed the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks – or SALT II – treaty, a milestone in Cold War diplomacy.
After the U.S. hockey team won the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, Carter sent the VC-137C to bring the team to Washington for a special ceremony.
His final trip aboard Air Force One came after he left office in January 1981, when President Ronald Reagan invited Carter to fly to Germany to greet the American hostages who had been freed from captivity in Iran.
Carter’s ties to Andrews extended beyond his presidency. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Carter returned to Andrews AFB on Sept. 14, 2001, aboard a C-20B to attend the National Prayer and Reconciliation Service at the National Cathedral in Washington.
The mission of “America’s Airfield” began on Nov. 24, 1946, when President Harry Truman became the first president to fly out of the base. About five months prior to Truman’s historic flight, 30 miles away in Annapolis, Maryland, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, launching his military career. Carter was one of 31 U.S. presidents to serve in the military.
On this National Day of Mourning, the late president’s remains departed from America’s Airfield one final time on Special Air Mission 39 for interment in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Story by Patrick Griffith
316th Wing