What is happening with the German officials flights?

The German government plane crash forced the German Foreign Minister to cancel her scheduled tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, and this incident cemented the German failure in government trips, which had reached an incredible stage, especially since Germany is considered one of the most meticulous and disciplined countries in the world.

The German Foreign Minister Analina Burbock was scheduled to arrive in Canberra last Monday evening, but a mechanical failure in the landing panels of her Airbus A340, belongs to the German Air Force, forced her to return to Abu Dhabi after stopping to refuel there.

The German Foreign Minister plane forced to emergency landing in UAE, after the plane took off after refueling on Monday night, a test flight was conducted without any problems, but the technical malfunction reappeared shortly after the plane took off, which had to return to the UAE capital again.

This incident added to a series of recent strange navigational failures that German officials witnessed on their sensitive flights.

Last May, Analina Burbock had to extend her Gulf tour for an extra day due to a damaged tire on the plane while she was on a visit to Qatar, and again last June, the German Defense delegation flight faced a problem during a visit to Africa, as there were using small government plane.

German media reported that before returning, the crew realized that several windows of the 17-seats plane had been blown out; most likely, due to the heat, and because of the incident, the German delegation had to return to Germany on a commercial flight.

A former German development minister, Gerd Müller, was also stranded in Malawi in 2019 because his government plane crashed.

While Müller boarded a charter flight to Zambia for his next appointment, a German crew flew to Malawi to repair the plane, before realizing they didn’t have all the necessary spare parts after dealing with the situation and repairing the plane, they fly to Zambia to pick up the German minister.

However, upon landing, another problem occurred with the plane’s computer system, so they made an emergency landing.

Müller and his delegation later returned to Germany on a chartered plane.

In 2019, the Former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now Germany’s president, was on a government plane to begin a tour of Africa.

Shortly before takeoff in Berlin, passengers heard a loud bang as one of the wheels exploded, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing, and after changing a tire, Steinmeier’s plane continued the trip to Africa.

In 2018, back then Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who’s now the German chancellor was left stranded in Indonesia after rats gnawed at some of the plane’s cables.

Scholz, who was on his way back from an IMF meeting, had to catch a commercial flight to Germany, while most of his delegation remained in Bali until the plane was repaired.

One of the most famous examples of the failure of official flights in Germany occurred during then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2018 trip to the G20 meeting in Argentina, and just one month after the Scholz plane rats fiasco caused, the Finance Minister and Merkel were heading to Buenos Aires when she had to their plane to return to Germany makes an emergency landing in Cologne.

The reason was the failure of the plane’s communication systems, and the result was Merkel’s commercial flights in Iberia and a late arrival at the summit.

Also, back in 2015, Merkel had to travel to India in a military cargo plane after her government plane was grounded due to technical faults, and a 2017 trip to Lithuania by Ursula von der Leyen (then Defense Minister, now President of the European Commission) took an unexpected turn when he discovered Engineers damaged the plane’s engine shortly before its scheduled return to Germany.

And after a half-hour delay, von der Leyen flew again on a much older replacement plane.

In order to get out of the impasse, the German Air Force issued a statement on Tuesday stated, “We’ll remove two A340s from service as soon as possible, during the coming weeks”.

The statement added that he had drawn up a plan to retire the plane currently in Abu Dhabi by the end of 2024, while he will end the use of the other plane at the end of next month.

The statement continued, “The government fleet has strong and modern aircraft for long-haul flights, including the new A350 aircraft”.

The German government fleet also includes several Airbus A319 and A321 aircraft, as well as smaller aircraft.

Due to frequent malfunctions in her government plane, German Foreign Minister Annalina Baerbock canceled her scheduled weeklong trip to the Pacific region.

A German government spokesman said on Tuesday morning, “We checked and planned until the last minute, but unfortunately it’s no longer possible logistically to reconcile the scheduled travel stops for the Indo-Pacific flight with the options that are still available after the plane crash”.