Coast Guard Flight Carrying DHS Secretary Mullin Makes Emergency Landing After Engine Failure
A U.S. Coast Guard aircraft carrying Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made an emergency landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday afternoon after the flight crew lost an engine and declared an inflight emergency.
“We just lost our right engine and would like to declare an emergency,” the pilot of Coast Guard Flight 101 told air traffic controllers, according to audio posted by ATC.com. The aircraft, a C-37A — the military version of the Gulfstream V — had departed Lawson Army Airfield near Columbus, Georgia, about 90 minutes earlier, according to ADS-B Exchange flight-tracking data.
The pilot said 14 people were on board and the jet had roughly two and a half hours of fuel remaining. It landed without incident and taxied off the runway, followed by two airport fire trucks.
Mullin credited the crew for their handling of the emergency, writing on social media: “The United States Coast Guard pilots made the single engine landing feel routine. No panic, just straight professionalism. After we landed, the pilots told me that was a first for them! We could not have been in better hands.”
The Coast Guard operates within DHS and often carries the secretary in one of two long-range command-and-control aircraft. Wednesday’s incident is likely to intensify scrutiny of the age and condition of that executive transport fleet, which has been a point of contention on Capitol Hill in recent years.
Last year, before Mullin led the department, DHS pushed back against criticism of funding sought for a replacement aircraft. “The current CG-101 G550 is over 20 years old, outside of Gulfstream’s service life, and well beyond operational usage hours for a corporate aircraft,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an online statement. “This is a matter of safety.”
The funding proposal drew opposition from Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson and LaMonica McIver, who wrote to then-DHS Secretary Kristy Noem questioning the $50 million purchase while other Coast Guard aircraft remained far older and in need of upgrades. “Funding the acquisition of this new jet would come at the cost of other USCG investments, including sorely needed modernization of the USCG’s aging aircraft fleet used by service members for search and rescue and other critical missions,” they wrote. “Your desire to travel in luxury should not eclipse the need for USCG service members to fly safely and conduct lifesaving missions.”
The Coast Guard referred questions to DHS on Wednesday, and the department pointed to Mullin’s social media post.