“We will not be proceeding today,” Merkel's spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday night.
According to tweets by German journalists on board the Airbus A340, named Konrad Adenauer after Germany's first post-war chancellor, Merkel will leave for Madrid on Friday and head on a commercial flight for Buenos Aires with a
slimmed down delegation.
The Chancellery did not confirm these reports.
A senior journalist with the public national television ZDF said Merkel would spend Thursday night in Bonn.
The plane turned back from the Netherlands and landed in Cologne because it was the only base with a replacement aircraft, the DPA news agency said.
The aircraft had taken off from Berlin at 7 p.m. and landed in Cologne around 8.30 p.m. Passengers had to wait on the plane for around 70 minutes, eyewitnesses said.
It was met on the tarmac by fire engines, DPA said, adding that the captain told the passengers the plane would have to turn back as a technical problem was disrupting several electrical systems.
The picture shows the Konrad Adenauer aircraft's changed route. Photo: DPA
Member comments