a special plane stood waiting for the president find the italicized word

Italics can be used sparingly for emphasis. So here in this sentence, it depends on the what the author wanted to emphasize. I could envision circumstances where special, or special plane, or even president could be italicized for emphasis. It would depend on context.

There is no word to be italicized.

If it were a ship with a particular name (such as USS Texas), then it would be italicized ... but there's not.

Perhaps if you gave us the entire context -- the whole paragraph -- in which the sentence exists, we could tell better. As it is, this is quite a vague example.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/italics.htm

(from Writeacher's links, thanks)

PS -- the initials "USS" should not be italicized in my post!!

To find the italicized word in the given sentence, you would need to look for any specific word or phrase that stands out because it is italicized or highlighted in some way. Since there is no italicized word in the given sentence, there is no word to find.