Flight with obstacles: Chancellor Angela Merkel had to interrupt her journey to the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires after only an hour's flight. The fully fueled A340 had to turn over the airspace of Holland a curve and land in Cologne, because some electronic systems have failed, as the captain announced.

Now, Merkel is to take a replacement plane from Cologne, which will take her - together with Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the delegation - to Argentina.

It is still unclear whether Merkel can meet their deadlines there. Actually, she should land there on Friday morning at 10 clock German time. The heads of state of the leading industrialized nations meet at the G20 summit.

The aircraft of type A340-300 with Merkel on board was launched at 19.00 clock in Berlin, she landed at 21.00 clock in Cologne. During one of the usual background conversations with traveling journalists, the Chancellor was taken from the meeting room of the aircraft by a stewardess shortly before 8 pm with the words "It's important".

A short time later Merkel announced that one had to return because of a technical defect. Cologne Airport is the home base of government planes. In addition, the remaining flight time to Cologne was less than to Berlin.

Continued flight over Atlantic so not possible

Around 8.30 pm, the captain informed the chancellor and fellow travelers that they were no longer on their way to Buenos Aires. The reason is a technical problem, one could not carry on the onward flight over the Atlantic.

The plan is to fly to Cologne, because there is the only eligible replacement machine. The aviation readiness is already in the process of organizing alternatives for the onward flight to Buenos Aires. "You really do not need to worry about anything else, so we'll make a safe landing in Cologne shortly."

At the Cologne airport several fire-fighting vehicles expected Merkel's plane, which lay down a hard landing, since not enough fuel could be drained during the flight to Cologne. After landing, the brakes of the aircraft were tested - these had been heavily used because of the unplanned high landing weight, according to the flight captain.

dpa

Air Force Airbus of Flight Readiness (Stock Image)

The government aircraft are always causing problems - recently also had Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and his staff on Bali because of "rodent infestation" rebook on scheduled aircraft. In 2016 Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then Foreign Minister, was particularly hard hit. He was stranded on the way to the G7 meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, due to the defect of a small engine in the Chinese metropolis of Changsha. In 2007, the then Federal President Horst Köhler had to cancel the award ceremony of the German Environmental Award because of several mishaps. At that time, two planes of flight readiness were defective.