LONDON: A helicopter carrying US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump made an emergency landing while en route to Stansted Airport.
Marine One was travelling from Chequers to the London airport after Mr Trump’s joint press conference with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, marking the end of his second state visit to Britain.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the helicopter landed “out of an abundance of caution” due to a minor hydraulic fault.
The couple later continued their journey in a support helicopter and reached Stansted around 20 minutes behind schedule.
Mr Trump, speaking later aboard Air Force One, joked with reporters: “Fly safely. You know why I say that? Because I’m on the flight. I want to get home, otherwise I wouldn’t care.”
The emergency landing was one of the few hiccups in what Starmer described as a “new era” for US-UK ties.
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The Trumps were welcomed with rare royal ceremony, including a state banquet, a flypast by the Red Arrows, and a military parade. A marching band even played Trump’s favourite song, YMCA.
The couple viewed a historic letter from Abraham Lincoln to Queen Victoria and laid a wreath at the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II, who had hosted Mr Trump during his first state visit.
The visit also carried a strong economic agenda. Mr Trump and Starmer signed a tech pact aimed at boosting cooperation on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies.
US companies pledged investments worth £150 billion in the UK, including £22 billion from Microsoft to expand Britain’s AI infrastructure and build its largest supercomputer. Google committed £5 billion, while Nvidia announced deployment of 120,000 processors across the UK. Nvidia’s chief Jensen Huang called it a “big week for AI in the UK.”
Mr Trump hailed the agreements, saying they would help America and Britain “dominate the future of artificial intelligence.”