Air Force One video has military in a flap

A startling internet video that appeared to show vandals spraying graffiti on Air Force One looked so authentic the US Air Force was not immediately certain whether the presidential plane had been targeted.

But it was all a hoax and the pranksters responsible for the grainy, two-minute web video – a New York fashion company – have revealed how they pulled it off: a rented Boeing 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

“I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment,” said Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises. “It’s this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath.”

The video shows hooded graffiti artists who climb barbed-wire fences and sneak past guards with dogs to approach the jumbo jet. In the hours after the video began circulating on the web on Tuesday, the USAF said it was checking whether the plane was targeted.

“We’re looking at it, too,” said Lt Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command’s 89th Airlift Wing, which operates Air Force One. “It looks very real.” Alexander later confirmed no such spray-painting had occurred.

Ecko acknowledged yesterday that his company had rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernardino’s airport and covertly painted one side to look like Air Force One.

Employees signed secrecy agreements and worked clandestinely inside a giant hangar until the night the video was made.

Ecko would not say how much the stunt cost. “It’s not cheap,” he said. “You have to be rich.”