Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has another plane breakdown: After a stopover for refueling in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, the Green politician was initially unable to continue early Monday morning. In reality, Baerbock was on his way for a week-long trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The reason for the unscheduled stop is a technical defect in the starting flaps. During the day on Monday it will be necessary to check how and when he can continue his trip to Australia.
After a routine refueling stop in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the Airbus took off A340-300 the readiness to fly of the Bundeswehr early Monday morning as scheduled. However, just three minutes after takeoff at 3:33 am local time (1:33 am CEST), the flight captain recorded a fault while retracting the takeoff flaps. After the crew drained approximately 80 tons of kerosene from the fully fueled aircraft during a two-hour flight maneuver over the desert emirate and the sea, Baerbock and his delegation landed safely in Abu Dhabi at 5:33 local time.
Failure to fully and synchronized retraction of the takeoff flaps, if necessary, prevented the aircraft from reaching normal cruising altitude and speed. Also, kerosene consumption has increased. The aircraft was fully fueled for the nearly 14-hour flight and took off from Abu Dhabi with a maximum take-off weight of 271 tonnes. It had to weigh less than 190 tons to land.
The flight captain spoke about a normal landing, practiced for such a situation in the simulator. He has been a pilot for 35 years and has been in the Air Force for 30 years. Such an error has not occurred in all this time, he said.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said on board: “Due to a mechanical problem, we have to return to Abu Dhabi for safety reasons.” On the ground, the flight crew should first check whether the damage can be repaired with on-board resources or if replacement parts are needed. It would also be conceivable that a replacement aircraft would have to be flown from Cologne/Bonn, the place of readiness to fly, to the Gulf Emirate. Another possibility would be that the minister took a scheduled flight with a small part of the delegation and that the rest of the traveling companions followed him on a government plane. On the sidelines of the trip, it was said that scheduled flights to Australia would depart as early as the evening.
Among other things, due to the legally prescribed rest periods for the flight crew, it was not expected that the Green politician would be able to continue flying with the availability of the Bundeswehr during Monday. Baerbock himself initially declined to comment publicly on the incident. However, it was assumed that he wanted to continue the journey.
Last breakdown in Doha in mid-May
This is not the first time the Secretary of State has experienced travel delays. It wasn’t until mid-May that Baerbock was stranded in Doha in the desert emirate of Qatar due to tire damage on her government Airbus and had to involuntarily extend her trip to the Gulf region.
But other members of the government have already had to endure unplanned stays due to breakdowns in a machine used by the Bundeswehr’s readiness service. For example, the Air Force Airbus had to do this Konrad Adenauer in November 2018 with then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and then Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) on board on the way to the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. By the way, the radio system was crippled. Both flew online to Argentina.
In October 2018, rodents also gnawed through important cables during a stopover in Indonesia adenauer A. At that time, Scholz flew back on a scheduled flight from the International Monetary Fund meeting. In December 2016, then Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) got stuck on her way to Mali. Due to a computer problem with lei’s A340 in the Nigerian capital Abuja, lei had to stay overnight there.
Baerbock’s most recent flight to Australia was originally on the previous one’s sister aircraft Konrad Adenauer expected, an almost identical A340-300. However, this too was broken.
Baerbock actually wanted to land in the Australian capital Canberra on Monday evening at around 10.30pm local time (2.30pm CEST on Mondays). On Tuesday morning, the official program was to begin with the return of colonial-era cultural assets to the indigenous Kaurna people of Australia. The objects of the Grassi Museum in Leipzig – a wooden sword, a spear, a fishing net and a mace – have a sacred, cultural and identity value for the Kaurna people. It was initially unclear what changes there would be to the planned travel schedule until Saturday.
