Homeland Security secretary’s Coast Guard plane makes emergency landing

Coast Guard Jet Carrying DHS Secretary Makes Single-Engine Emergency Landing at Reagan National Airport

Sandego.net – A military transport aircraft carrying the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security touched down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday afternoon after its right-side engine failed in flight, compelling the crew to declare an emergency and execute a single-engine approach. The incident, which unfolded over roughly ninety minutes of airborne time, ended without injury and drew immediate attention to the aging airframe that had been in service for more than two decades.

Flight Details and the Emergency Declaration

The aircraft in question was a C-37A, a military designation applied to the Gulfstream V business jet, which the Coast Guard operates as one of two long-range command-and-control platforms. Flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange indicates the jet departed Lawson Army Airfield near Columbus, Georgia, approximately ninety minutes before the emergency call. At the moment of the failure, fourteen individuals were aboard, and the pilot informed air traffic controllers that the remaining fuel supply was sufficient for two and a half additional hours of flight.

The pilot of Coast Guard flight 101 communicated the situation to controllers at Reagan National Airport in a radio exchange captured on a recording obtained by ATC.com:

“We just lost our right engine and would like to declare an emergency.”

Following the declaration, the jet completed a single-engine landing and taxied clear of the runway. Two airport fire trucks trailed the aircraft as it rolled to a stop, a standard precaution after any emergency approach.

Secretary Mullin’s Public Response

DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin, who was aboard the flight, took to social media shortly after touchdown to describe the experience. He credited the flight crew with composure under pressure:

“The United States Coast Guard pilots made the single engine landing feel routine. No panic, just straight professionalism.”

Mullin added that the crew informed him afterward that they had never before executed such a maneuver:

“After we landed, the pilots told me that was a first for them! We could not have been in better hands.”

An Aging Fleet Under Scrutiny

The Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, routinely transports the secretary between duty stations using its two long-range command-and-control aircraft. The C-37A involved in Wednesday’s incident belongs to a small fleet that has drawn repeated calls for modernization. Last year, before Mullin assumed the secretary’s role, the agency submitted funding requests aimed at replacing at least one of these jets.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin articulated the operational rationale in a statement posted online, pointing to the airframe’s age and accumulated flight hours:

“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.”

She framed the replacement as a safety imperative rather than a comfort upgrade:

“This is a matter of safety.”

Congressional Pushback on Priorities

The funding request did not go unchallenged. Two Democratic members of Congress, Representatives Bennie Thompson and LaMonica McIver, wrote to then-Secretary Kristy Noem to question the allocation of resources. Their letter highlighted that numerous other Coast Guard aircraft across the fleet were also well past their intended service lives, performing search-and-rescue and other mission-critical duties on aging airframes.

The pair argued that directing $50 million toward a single executive-transport jet would divert money from broader fleet modernization:

“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.”

Their closing line carried a pointed rebuke of institutional priorities:

“Your desire to travel in luxury should not eclipse the need for USCG service members to fly safely and conduct lifesaving missions.”

Institutional Context and Aftermath

Wednesday’s emergency landing lands squarely in the middle of that debate. A single-engine approach on a jet more than twenty years old, carrying the department’s top civilian official, underscores the operational risk that accompanies deferred maintenance and replacement cycles. While the crew’s handling of the situation drew praise from the passenger himself, the episode is likely to intensify congressional and public scrutiny of how the Coast Guard sequences its aircraft procurement budget.

The Coast Guard directed inquiries about the incident to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS, in turn, pointed to Mullin’s social media posting as its public statement on the event, offering no additional operational details beyond what the secretary had already shared.