An airplane carrying Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was forced to make an emergency landing in the United Kingdom Wednesday due to a crack in its windshield, officials said.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on social media that on the way back to the U.S. after NATO’s Defense Ministers meeting in Belgium, the plane made an “unscheduled landing in the United Kingdom” because of a crack in the aircraft’s windshield — also known as a windscreen.
The plane landed based on standard procedures, and all of the passengers on board, including Hegseth, were safe, Parnell added.
“All good. Thank God,” Hegseth wrote on X. “Continue mission!”
Hegseth was traveling in a C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 used by the Air Force for VIP transport. Other top leaders, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and occasionally, even President Donald Trump, use the aircraft when visiting airports with runways too short for the modified Boeing-747 Trump typically uses as Air Force One.
It was unclear what caused the crack in the plane’s windshield.
Flight tracking data showed that the plane took off from Brussels and made it past Ireland before turning around to land at Royal Air Force Mildenhall in England at 7:07 p.m. local time. It was not known what time the plane initially took off.
Hegseth and previous secretaries of defense have traditionally used a different aircraft for foreign travel, the Boeing E-4B.
The Boeing E-4B is a modified Boeing-747 that has been hardened for use an an airborne command post by the president or Pentagon leadership during nuclear conflicts. It is known within the Air Force as “Air Force One when it counts” and the “Doomsday plane.”
It was not immediately clear why Hegseth was traveling on the smaller, C-32 plane. The C-32, which had to be emergency landed, has less capabilities than the E-4B, but is decked out with a more luxurious interior thanks to upgrades made during Trump’s first term as president.
This is a breaking news story…
First Appeared on
Source link
