Germany Green Party Foreign Minister Once Again Stranded by Government Executive Jet Failures

Germany’s Air Force One equivalent has again let the government down, with one aircraft suffering an engine failure and another forced to divert because Eritrea wouldn’t permit it to use its airspace, stranding the Foreign Minister in Saudi Arabia.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green party politician, is due to make a three-day tour of diplomatic visits to East Africa, but her attempt to travel was once again interrupted by a series of failures and mishaps with her government-operated executive flights.

Attempting to fly on Wednesday, her first aircraft, a government executive flight white-painted Airbus A319 has to be cancelled as it developed an engine failure, reports Die Welt. Baerbock flew on a militarised Airbus A321LR painted in the military grey of the Luftwaffe, but even this second aircraft was destined to not reach its destination as hoped.

Baerbock’s flight to Djibouti necessitated transiting Eritrean airspace, and the captain of the German executive flight carrying the Green party politician aboard was unable to get permission from their air traffic control to enter. Remarkably, even calls directly to the Eritrean government to get the permission signed off failed, as a power cut in Djibouti meant the nation’s Foreign Ministry was unable to receive communications.

24 January 2024, Saudi Arabia, Dschidda: The crew on board the A321LR distributes snacks on the way to Jeddah. On the way to Djibouti in East Africa, the Air Force’s Air Force Airbus was not allowed to fly over Eritrea, which is why the delegation first had to stop in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa (Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

24 January 2024, Saudi Arabia, Dschidda: The Air Force’s Airbus A321LR is parked at the airfield. On its way to Djibouti in East Africa, the Airbus of the Air Force’s air readiness unit was not allowed to fly over Eritrea, which is why the delegation first had to stop in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa (Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Left unable to proceed above the Red Sea — presently the site of an ongoing conflict between Western navies and missile-armed Houthi rebels — Baerbock’s plane diverted to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for refuelling. While it was hoped to attempt to fly to Djibouti again the same day, it soon became apparent that would not be possible and Baerbock ended up staying the night. Baerbock finally arrived in Africa on Thursday and has flown internally on a chartered turboprop Dash 7 between meetings.

While the failures may be frustrating to Baerbock, they will not be unfamiliar. As reported, the Green Party politician’s personal airliner also let her down last year as she attempted to fly to Australia for a diplomatic tour. Baerbock’s initial flight had stopped in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to refuel on its way south, but upon taking off again the landing flaps malfunctioned, meaning it was unable to climb high enough to achieve cruising altitide.

The jet — Germany’s Air Force One Equivalent, named the ‘Konrad Adenauer’ in honour of the first chancellor of the Federal Republic — returned to Abu Dhabi for repairs, but the second attempt to fly to Australia the following day also failed, as the same error occurred. Baerbock was forced to give up on her diplomatic tour altogether and flew back to Germany on a commercial flight.

This was just one in a long line of airline failures on the fleet of executive craft meant to ferry German politicians about. As previously reported:

…one of several such embarrassments for German leaders who rely on the Luftwaffe to get them about on one hand, but have massively underfunded their own military for many years on the other. Baerbock was stranded in Qatar earlier this year after her government jet broke down and former Chancellor Angela Merkel experienced a breakdown in 2018. Other government mambers including Usrula von der Leyen — then the Defence Minister and now a top Eurocrat — and Olaf Scholz have also suffered breakdowns.

As reported by Breitbart London, it isn’t just VIPs who suffer these issues. When Germany wanted to make a significant donation of military equipment to the Kurds fighting ISIS in 2014 including over 100 vehicles, thousands of battle rifles, machine guns, anti-tank rockets, tens of thousands of grenades, and millions of rounds of ammunition, they were considerably delayed because the aircraft meant to do the job broke down on the runway.

Worse still, when the Luftwaffe found they were unable to fix the aircraft, the backup plane they borrowed from another country to get them out of trouble broke down too.

This state of affairs hasn’t been without critics. Indeed, the parlous state of the German military was slammed by no less than the head of the Luftwaffe, Lieutenant General Karl Müllner, who experienced what was reported to have been a “not quite voluntary” removal from post over his criticism of Merkel’s leadership in 2018.

As reported, When Müllner ‘retired’ he was treated to a ceremonious flyby of four Eurofighter combat jets of the Luftwaffe over Berlin — then the only four combat-ready airframes out of Germany’s theoretical fleet of 128.