Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Boeing government aircraft suffered a mechanical failure on his trip to Brussels for a NATO meeting, forcing a surprise road trip and a delay.
As the Daily Mail reported, the mechanical issue forced Blinken’s delegation to drive from Paris to Brussels for a meeting of foreign ministers at NATO headquarters. The driving distance from Paris to Brussels is 194 miles and lasts four hours.
Thanks to the mechanical failure, Blinken arrived about two hours late for the meeting. The Mail notes the U.S. Air Force owns and operates the Boeing 737 Blinken uses during his overseas trips. These have included several trips to the Middle East.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is currently addressing the foreign ministers at a meeting marking the 75th anniversary of the military alliance.
Here is the video of the tardy delegation arriving at NATO headquarters. It’s safe to assume they are not driving electric vehicles.
Technical problems with Blinken’s Boeing 737 forced his delegation to travel 300 km from Paris to Brussels by car to make the NATO ministerial meeting (but two hours after the others began to arrive) pic.twitter.com/53ichx2HP4
— RT (@RT_com) April 3, 2024
The Mail notes that Kamala Harris uses similar planes for trips.
This is not the first time Blinken has endured an aircraft issue while in Europe. Back in January, Blinken was forced to exit a Boeing 737 jet in Switzerland and move to a new plane after a critical failure was detected.
Blinken attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, at the time. CNN revealed that he was forced to travel on a smaller aircraft during his return to Washington after an oxygen leak was detected in the first plane Blinken boarded.
Boeing has been in the headlines for several malfunctions involving their jets, including a plane catching fire mid-flight, a large piece of an Alaska Airlines plane blowing out, and a jet crashing off the runway.
A Boeing whistleblower died last month under suspicious circumstances from a supposed self-inflicted wound inside his car in a hotel parking lot shortly after testifying against the aerospace company.
The company then announced two weeks later that three of its top executives, including CEO Dave Calhoun, would step down amidst continued turmoil over the safety of its passenger jets.