A plane carrying former President Donald Trump made an emergency landing in New Orleans Saturday evening. Trump was on his way home to his Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago estate after giving a speech to GOP donors in The Big Easy.
Trump was traveling in a donor’s private plane. The aircraft took off and was in the air for 20 to 30 minutes before one of the engines failed while the plane was over the Gulf of Mexico around 11 p.m.
The plane was able to return to the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Audio communications confirmed that the landing was “emergency in nature,” but others familiar with the situation said that the word “emergency” was never used. Traveling with Trump were a few of his advisers, Secret Service and some of his staff.
The Republican National Committee found Trump a new plane from a different donor and the ex-President made it safely home by the early hours of Sunday morning.
Saturday night, Trump gave a 90-minute speech covering a wide range of topics in front of donors at the Four Seasons Hotel in New Orleans. He mentioned that he was “looking … very, very strongly” at the possibility of running for a second term in the White House in 2024.
