German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was forced to suspend her trip to Australia due to the failure of the plane she was traveling in, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said on Monday morning. The dpa agency later reported that the minister would continue his journey from Abu Dhabi on Monday evening. To land safely, the Airbus A340-300 had to dump nearly 80 tons of fuel into the sea.
After a stopover in the night from Sunday to Monday, the government Airbus A340-300 with the minister on board found a defect in the take-off flaps. Annalena Baerbock travels for a week Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. For safety reasons, it was necessary to return the fully fueled aircraft to Abu Dhabi airport.
The machine took off with a maximum load of 271 tons, it was necessary to reduce the weight to 190 tons for landing. The plane circled over the sea for nearly 80 minutes, dropping about a tonne of fuel per minute before landing safely in Abu Dhabi.
Annalena Baerbock photocosmos1/Shutterstock
Minister Baerbock sticks to the program of his trip to the Pacific region despite a plane crash. Currently, it is being checked whether the journey can be continued by a liner plane, dpa has learned.
The official program of the visit of the head of the German Foreign Ministry to Australia is to start on Tuesday. The minister will take part in the ceremony of handing over cultural goods to the representatives of the Kaurna tribe. Four items (club, wooden sword, spear, fishing net) were appealed for in 2019 from the Leipzig museum.
Main photo source: photocosmos1/Shutterstock