Trip to Australia
Panne prevented Baerbocks further flight at the second attempt
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock climbs out of the government machine. photo
© Sina Schuldt/dpa
The Foreign Minister had actually wanted to be in Australia for a long time. But her machine has to turn back again. According to the captain, something like this “has never happened in the history of the readiness to fly”.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also failed at the second attempt with the attempt to follow up with the Air Force’s readiness to fly to fly Australia. “If you look at the monitors, you will also recognize the same flight behavior as yesterday. We are just circling. Unfortunately, the same problem that we had yesterday happened to us again,” said the flight captain on Tuesday night according to a dpa reporter on board the machine.
After taking off at 1:00 a.m. local time (11:00 p.m. CEST) in Abu Dhabi, the machine initially climbed, but did not pick up speed. 15 minutes after take-off, the Airbus A340-300 veered off course again and flew back towards the desert emirate. Baerbock was contrite in a first reaction: “Sometimes it’s really darn.”
Defective landing flaps
The Green politician is on a week-long trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. On Monday, your plane had to make a longer stopover in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates due to a defect in the Airbus landing flaps.
“The flap enlargements, the wing enlargements can no longer be retracted. They locked themselves again (…). We spoke to Lufthansa test pilots. This error does not exist,” said the captain. “For those who are anxious, there is no need to worry at all. We have enough fuel. When we reach our landing weight again afterwards, like yesterday, then it will be a completely normal landing.” He’s been doing it for a few years, said the captain, “but nothing like this has ever happened in the history of readiness to fly.”
It is the second such breakdown within 24 hours. Early on Monday morning, three minutes after take-off at 3:33 a.m. local time (1:33 a.m. CEST), the flight captain noticed a defect in the retraction of the flaps. After the crew had drained around 80 tons of kerosene from the fully tanked plane in a two-hour maneuver over the desert emirate and the sea, it landed back in Abu Dhabi at 5:33 a.m. local time.
Pilot is little optimistic
Since the landing flaps could not be retracted fully and synchronously as necessary, the aircraft could not reach normal cruising altitude and speed – kerosene consumption would have increased significantly on the long route to Australia. Since the aircraft was fully fueled for the almost 14-hour flight, the weight had to be greatly reduced for the landing.
After another mishap on the second attempt, the pilot gave a less than optimistic prognosis over the on-board microphone: “For us, the flight is over today. Since we are absolutely in the dark at the moment as to which computer is to blame for the misery, it will be for probably not give us another flight to Australia, even tomorrow.” They are now trying to find out how the plane can even get back to Germany.