Breakdown in the USA
Plane carrying Finance Minister Klingbeil stranded
Updated on September 2, 2026 – 01:38 amReading time: 2 minutes
Breakdown on the return flight of the Federal Minister of Finance. Lars Klingbeil is stuck in the USA. This is doubly annoying for the SPD politician.
Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) was actually supposed to return from the G20 summit on Tuesday USA fly back to Germany. But the government plane, which was scheduled to take off at 3:45 p.m. (local time), stopped at the Asheville regional airport in the US state of North Carolina.
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The German Finance Minister’s delegation now has to stay in a hotel after a three-hour wait, as t-online reporter Daniel Mützel reports. It is reportedly unclear whether and when the flight from Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport can still take place. The reason for the delay is said to be damage to the machine.
For Klingbeil, the breakdown is also annoying in another respect: the finance minister missed the cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning at which the reform of the Income tax should be decided. The law has recently come under heavy criticism, including Economics Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) attacking Klingbeil on Tuesday. The law can be passed on Wednesday despite Klingbeil’s absence. The minister can be represented.
Amazing series of mishaps when ready to fly
The meeting in the USA was turbulent for the German top politician, as you can read here. He then visited a BMW factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
It is not the first time in recent years that the Bundeswehr’s flight readiness has had problems with government aircraft. The most spectacular breakdown of the German government fleet occurred in November 2018. At that time, Chancellor Angela Merkel and finance minister Olaf Scholz on the way to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. But shortly after the start we fell airbus A340 balances two radio systems. The systems should actually protect each other in an emergency. The machine had to turn back. To this day, this incident is considered one of the most serious in the history of aviation.
