German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s flight to Poland for World War II commemorations has been delayed after the government aircraft he'd intended to board experienced technical difficulties, APA reports citing the German news outlet N-TV.
Steinmeier had to change from an Airbus A321 to a smaller A319 aircraft in Berlin due to a faulty display for the de-icing system of the A321, a Luftwaffe (German Air Force) spokesman was quoted by local media as saying. The spokesperson added that the A319 plane had safely landed at a Polish airport.
The replacement became the latest in a series of similar incidents that have dogged German government planes in the past.
Last month, a technical problem on the A321 prompted Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to use an A-319 plane to fly to New York from Berlin's Tegel Airport; in a February incident, his aircraft was stuck in the land-locked African nation of Mali due to similar problems.
In a separate incident pertaining to Maas’ plane, one of his Airbus A321’s tyres exploded upon landing at a New York airport in April despite the fact that it had recently been replaced with a new tyre. .
In January, President Steinmeier was stranded in Ethiopia after a “compressed air problem” was found on a government plane.
Follow us on Telegram
t.me/apanewsaz
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
