Hegseth’s Air Force Jet Diverts for Emergency Landing

A U.S. Air Force plane carrying Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made an emergency landing Oct. 15 while the Pentagon chief was traveling in Europe, U.S. officials said. 

Hegseth was traveling back from the NATO Defense Ministerial in Brussels en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., when the windshield cracked, Hegseth’s spokesman said. The plane landed safely, and the Defense Secretary was unharmed.

The episode happened over the Atlantic and south of Ireland when the C-32A—a militarized Boeing 757 flown by the 89th Airlift Wing—declared an emergency. It descended to 10,000 feet, and diverted to RAF Mildenhall in England, according to open source flight tracking data. The aircraft, tail 98-0002, is one of the Air Force’s oldest C-32s.

“On the way back to the United States from NATO’s Defense Ministers meeting, Secretary of War Hegseth’s plane made an unscheduled landing in the United Kingdom due to a crack in the aircraft windshield,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement provided to Air & Space Forces Magazine, referring to Hegseth’s secondary title authorized by the Trump administration. “The plane landed based on standard procedures and everyone onboard, including Secretary Hegseth, is safe.”

It is unclear who else was traveling with Hegseth, including whether there were any other high-ranking U.S. officials or military officers. In a departure from many past trips, Hegseth’s plane had no traveling press aboard.

It is the second time an Air Force C-32 carrying a high-ranking cabinet official has had to divert due to a cracked windshield. In February, a plane carrying Secretary of State Marco Rubio ran into a similar problem after taking off from Joint Base Andrews as the chief diplomat was flying to a security conference in Europe.