Merkel to miss G20 start after emergency landing

Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will miss the opening of the G20 summit in Argentina after her plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Cologne on Thursday due to a technical problem, her spokeswoman said.

“We will not be proceeding today,” she said.

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.

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.