A plane carrying Donald Trump back to his Florida home reportedly made an emergency landing in New Orleans Saturday night when one of its engines failed.
The Washington Post reports that the Dassault Falcon 900 flew about 75 miles after departing New Orleans Lakefront Airport and was over the Gulf of Mexico when the trouble occurred. Trump had recently finished speaking to Republican donors at a private event at the Four Seasons Hotel in New Orleans.
The plane reached an altitude of nearly 30,000 feet when it was turned around and flown back to the Big Easy safely. Also aboard were Secret Service members and Trump staffers, the Washington Post reported.
The Dassault Falcon is operated by a two-person crew and holds nearly 20 passengers and has a maximum takeoff rate of roughly 45,500 pounds. The flight carrying Trump’s team reportedly originated in Texas. That plane’s owner was an unidentified private donor, the newspaper said.
A different donor’s private plane was reportedly used to bring the former president back to his Mar-a-Lago estate Saturday morning.
A McClatchy reporter tweeted Wednesday that an email from the former president’s political action committee seeks to raise money for a Trump Force One plane.
“The construction of this plane has been under wraps — not even the fake news media knows about it — and I can’t wait to unveil it for everyone to see,” the purported solicitation reads.
In 1989, Trump paid $365 million to purchase the Trump Shuttle airline. The company lost $125 million in 18 months, according to Business Insider. Trump bowed out of the commercial aviation business in 1992.
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