Joe Biden touches down at SeaTac, beginning state’s first presidential visit in six years

The cool after­noon air felt elec­tric as press and staff await­ed the begin­ning of the first pres­i­den­tial vis­it to Wash­ing­ton State in near­ly six years.

Air Force One land­ed at 5:11 PM Pacif­ic Time at Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. On the tar­mac, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden was greet­ed by Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, Seat­tle May­or Bruce Har­rell, Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Smith, and SeaT­ac May­or Jake Simp­son,​ before being whisked away to a DNC fundrais­er in the Lau­rel­hurst neigh­bor­hood of Seattle.

Pres­i­dents tend to vis­it swing states and their party’s strong­holds, so reli­ably Demo­c­ra­t­ic states like Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon haven’t expe­ri­enced the thrill of a pres­i­den­tial vis­it since Pres­i­dent Obama’s last trip in 2016.

This was the first Air Force land­ing I’ve expe­ri­enced in person.

I arrived at the air­port about an hour before Air Force One arrived to check in with the White House and Secret Ser­vice. After being screened, I walked out to the tar­mac. Reporters from all the major Seat­tle tele­vi­sion sta­tions and The Seat­tle Times had set up cam­eras atop a flat-bed truck parked par­al­lel to Air Force One’s des­ig­nat­ed park­ing spot on the tarmac.

As the wind picked up and began to fur­ther chill the air, I looked behind me to see a sniper team set up atop a ware­house roof direct­ly behind the truck and to the left of it. A Secret Ser­vice agent stood just behind the met­al bar­ri­cades near the front of the truck, and sev­er­al Port employ­ees could be seen mak­ing the rounds.

Police or Secret Ser­vice oper­at­ed vehi­cles occa­sion­al­ly crossed the tar­mac and cor­re­spon­dents filmed quick updates on flight delays in the periphery.

At 5:10 PM, every cam­era was point­ed to the north as Air Force One appeared on the hori­zon. By this point, the wind was blow­ing cold rain in seem­ing­ly every direc­tion for a prop­er Seat­tle welcome!

Ten min­utes lat­er, Pres­i­dent Biden’s VC-25A trans­port stood just 50 meters in front of our truck, and press and staff began spilling out of the mod­i­fied Boe­ing 747’s rear airstairs. The sight of the plane was awe-inspir­ing; this par­tic­u­lar pres­i­den­tial trans­port was a lot larg­er than I had imag­ined it would be.

The motor­cade of motor­cy­cles, SUVs, and limos began rolling in at 5:23 PM, offload­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee and local dig­ni­taries like May­or Har­rell near the plane. Pres­i­dent Biden descend­ed a set of truck-mount­ed airstairs at 5:25 PM, greet­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee first while staff and the trav­el­ing press climbed into black SUVs.

By 5:26 PM, every­one had loaded, and by 5:28 PM the motor­cy­cles and white vans bring­ing up the pres­i­den­tial motorcade’s tail end were rolling off the tar­mac. By 5:30 PM, the snipers and press on the truck were pack­ing up and head­ing out.

The speedy dis­em­bark­ing process ran like a well-oiled machine, with the tar­mac clear­ing just as quick­ly as it had filled up.

Although shiv­er­ing and wet, I couldn’t stop grin­ning at the curi­ous feel­ing of step­ping into a scene from The West Wing.

The jour­nal­ists present who have pre­vi­ous­ly cov­ered Air Force One land­ings assured me that wit­ness­ing the pageantry and grav­i­tas of the Unit­ed States pres­i­den­cy is always a lit­tle sur­re­al. And it nev­er gets old.