The French Presidential Airbus A330 has had its wingtip damaged in a towing accident. The wingtip punctured a hole in a hangar upon impact.
The incident allegedly occurred in Beirut on Monday afternoon, after Emmanuel Macron touched on his second visit to the city, following a devastating explosion. However, other reports suggest the incident occurred last week.
It is unclear what caused the incident, although it did occur during towing.
Conflicting reports on Twitter suggest that the President will return to France on a Dassault Falcon jet. One Twitter source familiar with the matter said that engineers had repaired the damage on-site.
The Airbus A330-200, registered F-RARF, arrived in Beirut under the callsign “COTAM 001” which is the ATC designation for any aircraft the President is flying onboard.
The aircraft flew out of Beirut on Wednesday morning and was tracked by FlightAware to somewhere near Amman, Jordan. The end destination or purpose of the flight remains unknown.
As more details are available, we will update this article.
Feature Image: The Travellers Club (via Twitter)