ABSTRACT
On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush flew in a S-3B Viking from a naval base in San Diego to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln anchored in the Pacific Ocean, he became the first sitting US president to accomplish a "tailhook" landing. It was a close shave. The presidential jet managed to catch the last of the four steel wires across the flight deck positioned to help the plane land on the aircraft carrier. Failure to do so would have plunged the S-3B into the Pacific Ocean waters off the California coast. Once on the deck, Bush proclaimed: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country".
