Air Force One returned to Joint Base Andrews late Tuesday with President Donald Trump on board after experiencing a “minor electrical issue,” a White House official said.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that Trump would board a different plane at the base and continue on to Switzerland, where he is expected to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.

Trump was expected to arrive about three hours late, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in Davos. It was unclear whether his scheduled speech at 2:30 p.m. local time in Davos, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern, on Wednesday, would be delayed.

Trump Expected to Meet With World Leaders

Trump is expected to meet afterward with several world leaders, some of whom have challenged his threat to annex Greenland and his plans for a “Board of Peace” to oversee the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The plane turned around “out of an abundance of caution” after crew identified the issue shortly after takeoff, Leavitt said. Some of the cabin lights in the aircraft were not working. It landed at 11:07 p.m. at Joint Base Andrews.

Several senior officials were aboard the plane with Trump, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

Air Force One is the designation given to any Air Force plane carrying the president, and there are two specially modified Boeing 747s in its fleet for that purpose. Both planes entered service more than 35 years ago and have had maintenance problems. Trump has frequently complained about them.

An aircraft’s electrical system allows the pilots to operate its other systems, including essential ones like the flight controls, said Keith Tonkin, an aviation expert in Brisbane, Australia.

Aircraft electrical systems have backups, suggesting the pilots in this case detected a “relatively critical” issue, he said.

Older aircraft like those of Air Force One are less reliant on electricity than newer planes, he added.

Trump’s first administration renegotiated a contract with Boeing for two new 747-8 planes. They are not expected to be finished before the end of his second term.

In May, the Trump administration accepted a new 747-8 jetliner from the government of Qatar, which will require extensive work before it can be considered secure enough to be used as Air Force One. It is unclear how long the Defense Department will need to build security measures into the new plane.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Francesca Regalado, Luke Broadwater, Yan Zhuang and Qasim Nauman/Doug Mills
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