Plane carrying US Secretary of State Marco Rubio returns to Washington after mechanical snag

An Air Force plane with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen Jim Risch, to Germany for the Munich Security Conference was forced to return to Washington late Thursday after developing a mechanical issue.

"This evening, en route from Washington to Munich, the plane on which Secretary Rubio is flying experienced a mechanical issue," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.

"The plane has turned around and is returning to Joint Base Andrews," she said. "The secretary intends to continue his travel to Germany and the Middle East on a separate air craft."


The issue, one official said, was with the cockpit windshield on the C-32, a converted Boeing 757. It happened about 90 minutes after the flight took off from Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington.

Rubio planned to resume his journey on a new plane, but it i not clear if the delay would cause him to miss a scheduled Friday morning meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich.