- Vance’s chartered 737 had to return to Milwaukee after a door problem
- The plane made an emergency landing before taking off again to Cincinnati.
- READ MORE: Follow the day’s political developments in our live blog
JD Vance’s campaign plane had to make an emergency landing after a flight malfunction on Friday afternoon.
The chartered Boeing 737 had to return to Milwaukee, where Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate had previously appeared with local police officers.
“The pilot reported there was a door seal malfunction. After the emergency was declared, Trump Force Two returned to Milwaukee,” spokeswoman Taylor Van Kirk said.
“Once the issue was resolved, the aircraft returned to its originally scheduled flight path back to Cincinnati.”
JD Vance uses a chartered 737, dubbed Trump Force Two, to travel between events. He is seen here speaking to reporters in Wisconsin last week.
Cincinnati is the home base of the Ohio senator and he makes day trips to campaign events.
From there, he has traveled across the swing states with key personnel, Secret Service agents and a handful of journalists since being nominated as Trump’s vice president.
On Friday he was also accompanied by his wife Usha and his dog Atlas.
Photojournalist Asher Heimermann, who witnessed the landing, said the Milwaukee County Fire Department was on site and inspected the plane before it continued on to its intended destination.
Scanner traffic revealed that there were 43 people on board.
While Trump travels in his own private Boeing 757, equipped with a bedroom and a state-of-the-art music system, the flight for Vance is more prosaic.
It has two rows of seats along the entire length, complemented by some conference tables.
The tail of the plane is covered with the names of donors, and the inside is decorated with campaign slogans (such as “Drain the swamp of corruption in Washington”).
Last week, there was a showdown on the tarmac when the plane landed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, minutes after Kamala Harris’ Air Force Two. Vance and his entourage headed there to see if he could catch a word with the vice president.
The aircraft was decorated with campaign details, including the names of donors on the tail
Vance speaks to reporters on his plane during a campaign trip to Virginia last month
On Friday, Vance received the support of the Milwaukee Police Association
“I just wanted to test my future airplane,” he later joked.
This is the latest aviation issue to weigh on the campaign.
On Friday, Trump’s plane had to be diverted due to a mechanical failure during a flight to Montana. It landed in Billings, where the former president changed planes to continue his trip to Bozeman, where he held a rally.
It later emerged that he had traveled on a private jet that once belonged to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
