Secretary of State Antony Blinken and an American delegation were forced to drive from Paris to Brussels to attend a NATO meeting Wednesday after his plane was again grounded due to a \u2018mechanical issue,\u2019 the State Department said.<\/p>\n
The incident involving the aircraft, identified by Bloomberg as a modified Boeing 737, happened after Blinken\u2019s travel plans were upended in January when the plane he was using to visit Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum\u2019s annual meeting encountered what the State Department described as a \u2018mechanical issue\u2019 as well.<\/p>\n
\u2018Due to a mechanical issue with the aircraft, Secretary Blinken and the American delegation drove from Paris to Brussels to attend the NATO Foreign Minister\u2019s meeting,\u2019 a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday following the latest incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trip between the French and Belgian capitals is about a 4-hour, 200-mile journey. Blinken had met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u2018Secretary Blinken and President Macron reaffirmed strong support for Ukraine\u2019s fight for freedom against Russia\u2019s aggression,\u2019 State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. \u2018They also agreed on the importance of preventing the conflict in Gaza from expanding, including avoiding escalation in Lebanon; discussed challenges posed by the People\u2019s Republic of China; and discussed efforts to bolster global food security through coordination on the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS).\u2019<\/p>\n
In January, the State Department said the U.S. Air Force sent a replacement plane to Switzerland to bring Blinken home from the meetings in Davos. After that event, the aircraft he was traveling in was unable to take off due to a \u2018mechanical issue,\u2019 Miller said at the time.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s a mechanical issue. I don\u2019t know the nature of the mechanical issue, but he is in Zurich. He was scheduled to fly back from Zurich,\u2019 Miller had said.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Air Force has a replacement plane inbound. We expect him to be back\u2026 But several hours later than originally planned,\u2019 Miller added.<\/p>\n
According to Bloomberg, the Boeing 737 in that incident suffered a critical error after an oxygen leak was detected and it was not immediately fixable. The aircraft was subsequently deemed unsafe to fly.<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Ashley Cozzolino contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and an American delegation were forced to drive from Paris to Brussels to attend a NATO meeting Wednesday after his plane was again grounded due to a \u2018mechanical issue,\u2019 the State Department said. The incident involving the aircraft, identified by Bloomberg as a modified Boeing 737, happened after Blinken\u2019s travel <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}