Boeing 737: US Secretary of State forced to go by car from Paris to Brussels for Nato meeting after plane suffered 'mechanical issues'

The US Secretary of State was forced to go by road from Paris to Brussels for a NATO meeting after the government’s Boeing 737 plane suffered “mechanical issues”. TheIt forced Antony Blinken to take an unexpected road trip, a journey of over four hours, for a meeting of foreign ministers at Nato headquarters.

Blinken arrived about two hours late to the meeting due to the plane’s mechanical failure. The U.S. Air Force owns and operates the modified Boeing 737 Blinken uses during his globe-trotting trips, which have included repeat trips to the Middle East.

It is the second time this year that Blinken has had an issue with a Boeing plane while travelling. In January, when Blinken was about to return from Switzerland, the same model of plane suffered a critical failure related to an oxygen leak and he was forced to fly home in a smaller jet.

It comes as Boeing is under increased scrutiny since a door plug on a 737 Max blew off on an Alaska Airlines flight on 5 January leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary investigation found that the jet left a Boeing factory in October without the four bolts needed to keep the door plug in place.

The incident has sparked numerous investigations into Boeing's practices and public attention to a large number of other problems on subsequent flights with Boeing jets. A six-week audit into Boeing and its subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems has recently found “dozens” of quality control problems including dish soap and hotel key cards being used on parts of planes. 

The audit run by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found that mechanics working for Spirit were observed using Dawn dish soap on a door seal in place of lubricant. The seal was then reportedly cleaned up with a “wet cheesecloth.” In another instance, Spirit mechanics were reportedly found using a hotel key card to check a door seal. A former US congressman, Peter DeFazio, previously slammed Boeing for relying on “crappy stuff” from its subcontractor.