Biden trips again boarding Air Force One — this time on shorter staircase
President Biden once again stumbled walking up the steps to board Air Force One on Thursday, despite using a less challenging, shorter staircase to get on the aircraft.
The 80-year-old president made it roughly halfway up the 14-step staircase connected to the presidential plane in Helsinki, Finland, when he took a misstep and appeared to brace himself for impact before quickly recovering and making it up to the aircraft’s lower entrance.
Biden turned and waved to onlookers at Helsinki-Vantaan International Airport as Air Force One prepared to depart for Joint Base Andrews after the president’s visit with Nordic leaders following a two-day NATO summit in Lithuania.
The president has been observed boarding Air Force One using a shorter set of stairs since taking a hard fall at the Air Force Academy in Colorado last month after he tripped over a sandbag during a graduation ceremony.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last month that she was unaware of “any decision process” that has been made regarding which set of stairs the president uses when boarding Air Force One.
Previous presidents have reportedly used the shorter stairs to get on and off the highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft when there was rough weather.
Thursday’s misstep appears to be at least the fourth time the president has taken a fall while trying to board Air Force One.
In February, Biden also had issues keeping his balance on his way home from an international trip, as he was filmed falling forward about halfway up the stairs to the plane leaving Warsaw, Poland.
In that instance, the president was using the aircraft’s longer set of stairs.
White House doctor Kevin O’Connor noted in a five-page report issued after the president’s annual physical earlier this year that Biden has a stiff gait due to “significant spinal arthritis, mild post-fracture foot arthritis and a mild sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet.”
Biden, the oldest president in US history, leaves Europe Thursday night after a gaffe-filled week in which he referred to Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir as a “daughter of Ireland,” called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “Vladimir,” and skipped the summit’s opening dinner, where major diplomacy often takes place.