Donald Trump's flight to Switzerland was abruptly cut short on Tuesday evening, with Air Force One returning to Joint Base Andrews an hour after departure. The presidential aircraft turned back after its crew identified a "minor electrical issue" shortly after takeoff.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the decision was made "out of an abundance of caution." A reporter on board noted that lights in the press cabin briefly failed, with passengers informed of the turnaround roughly half an hour into the flight.
Trump was on his way to Davos, Switzerland, and is likely to use the World Economic Forum to escalate his push for acquiring Greenland despite European protests in the biggest fraying of transatlantic ties in decades.
Trump boarded another aircraft, an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used by the president for domestic trips to smaller airports, and continued on with his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos shortly after midnight.
The two planes currently used as Air Force One have been flying for nearly four decades. Boeing has been working on replacements, but the program has faced a series of delays. The planes are heavily modified with survivability capabilities for the president for 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.
Last year, the ruling family of Qatar gifted Trump a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to be added into the Air Force One fleet, a move that faced great 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 because of a mechanical issue. In October, a military plane carrying Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to make an emergency landing in United Kingdom due to a crack in the windshield.
Trump told a news conference on Tuesday that he would have meetings about the Danish territory of Greenland in Davos and was optimistic that an agreement could eventually be made.
