Trump’s Air Force One forced to return to Washington after electrical issue

President Donald Trump’s flight to Switzerland was abruptly cut short on Tuesday evening, with Air Force One returning to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland an hour after takeoff after a “minor electrical issue” was discovered on board.

The presidential aircraft had set out for the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump is due to give a speech Wednesday and face questions about his controversial ambition to acquire Greenland, when its crew identified an electrical fault and decided to turn back.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the decision was made “out of an abundance of caution.”

A reporter on board noted that the lights in the press cabin briefly failed, and passengers were informed of the turnaround roughly half an hour into the journey.

The president boarded another aircraft, an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports, and continued on with his trip to Davos shortly after midnight. He has since arrived safely in Switzerland.

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Air Force One is the designation for any plane carrying the president, and there are currently two specially modified Boeing 747s in its fleet for that purpose. However, they have been in service for almost 40 years and have suffered maintenance problems in the past.

Boeing has been working on replacements, but the program has faced a series of delays, a subject Trump has frequently complained about.

The planes are modified to enhance survivability across a range of contingencies, including radiation shielding and antimissile technology.

They also include a variety of communications systems to allow the president to remain in contact with the military and issue orders from anywhere in the world.

Any aircraft’s electrical system allows the pilots to control its other systems, including its flight controls, aviation expert Keith Tonkin told The New York Times. These electrical systems have backups, so the decision to return to Maryland, creating a roughly three-hour delay, suggested the pilots had detected a “relatively critical” issue, Tonkin said.

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Last year, the ruling family of Qatar gifted Trump a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to be added to the Air Force One fleet, a move that attracted considerable scrutiny. That plane is currently being retrofitted to meet security requirements.

Leavitt joked to reporters on Air Force One Tuesday night that a Qatari jet was sounding “much better” right now.

Last February, an Air Force plane carrying Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Germany had to return to Washington due to a mechanical issue, reportedly a cracked windshield.

Similarly, in October, a military plane carrying Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to make an emergency landing in the U.K. after a crack in its windshield.

Trump told a news conference Tuesday that he would hold meetings on Greenland while in Davos and was optimistic that an agreement could eventually be reached, despite strong rhetoric from French President Emmanuel Macron and the presence of protesters opposing his attendance.