Falcon aircraft mid-flight breakdown forces Spain's PM Sánchez to cancel trip to Paris to meet Zelenskyy

A mid-flight breakdown of the Falcon that was taking Pedro Sánchez to Paris on Thursday morning to attend the meeting of the Coalition of the Willing - a grouping of allies of Ukraine - forced the plane to return to Madrid. The aircraft had to turn around after 40 minutes of flight due to an undisclosed incident. For this reason, the Prime Minister of Spain had to join the meeting by videoconference from the Moncloa, after landing at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base without major setbacks.

According to executive branch sources, the government decided to cancel the trip, as the option of returning to Madrid to use another aircraft to travel to the French capital was not viable due to the delay it would have caused. Sánchez would have ultimately not had the chance to physically participate in the summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders.

The event at the Palacio del Elísio began at 10am and Sánchez landed back in Torrejón about 15 minutes before the meeting began, just in time to take the helicopter to Moncloa to follow the international meeting online.

In addition to Zelenskyy, France's President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, president of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen, Nato general secretary Mark Rutte and president of the European Council Antonio Costa participated in person in the meeting in Paris. Other leaders, such as British PM Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump, were connected by videoconference.

Sánchez flew to London on Wednesday, 3 September, to hold a bilateral meeting with Starmer at Downing Street. In the evening, he returned to sleep in Madrid, from where he was to travel to the French capital on Thursday.

The main objective of the Coalition of the Willing meeting was to analyse the security guarantees that its members would give Ukraine in the event of a hypothetical peace agreement with Putin or a ceasefire.