Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has defended the flight readiness of her house, after a serious mishap prevented the Chancellor's flight to the G20 summit: The incident was regrettable, but not a consequence of a fundamental problem.

"With only two percent default rate on government flights in the last two years and an average operational readiness of 89 percent, the flight readiness is statistically very reliable," said the CDU politician of "Bild" newspaper (Saturday). But she acknowledged: "If just then important flights such as the Chancellor to the G20 summit fail, it hurts all the more."

However, there are different opinions about the reliability of flight readiness. That every incident, every flight failure produces headlines, is of course also due to the mostly prominent passengers. In principle, however, it is also true that the machines are a bit old by nature: for reasons of cost savings, the aviation readiness basically buys only second-hand machines.

Not ready to fly: Three mishaps in two months

So flew the Airbus "Konrad Adenauer", with the chancellor Angela Merkel in Cologne / Bonn instead of in Argentina, previously for about ten years in the service of Lufthansa. However, the machine is still far from being "old": most passenger aircraft have several operating decades.

But the airworthiness of the Ministry of Defense is not only relatively old in international comparison, but also as conspicuously prone to failure. So also the "Konrad Adenauer": In the middle of November, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier experienced a forced break for hours in South Africa, because one of the engines of the government machine could only be started with the help of an external device. One month before, Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz in Indonesia switched from the "Konrad Adenauer" to a line machine because the government machine could not start: first the cables had to be repaired, which had probably been eaten by mice.

Thus, the current glitch turns out to be the highlight of a small but highly embarrassing series: During the night of Friday, Airbus of the Ministry of Defense, which was to take Merkel and her delegation to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, had to turn back via the Netherlands. The cause was a failure of the radio system. The system for discharging kerosene was also affected.

The machine landed in Cologne / Bonn. This was a tricky business due to its heavy weight - Airbus still had almost all the kerosene in its tanks. On landing, the brakes overheated.

DPA

Merkel's machine: statistically most of the time ready to fly

The emergency solution: Somehow to Argentina

Merkel had to spend the night in Bonn and did not travel to Argentina until Friday morning with twelve hours delay - first with a plane ready to fly to Madrid, then with a scheduled flight to Buenos Aires. She missed parts of the program on the first day of the G20 meeting.

The Green Weeping Expert Tobias Lindner called for a "full investigation" of the incident. "The question arises as to whether and why the aircraft are more prone to flying than they are in civilian service," he told the "Passauer Neue Presse" (Saturday).

"We are about to make a fool of ourselves," said the FDP budget politician Otto Fricke the newspaper: "The bureaucratic and technical botch, by which the flight readiness is always striking, so can not go on." Fricke brought a privatization of aviation into play: "Privatization is a possibility to consider, but it does not have to be the better solution in principle."