VIENNA — For the fourth time this year — and the second time in three months — Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to fly home commercially when his aging Air Force Boeing 757 was grounded Thursday with a mechanical problem in Vienna.
Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling aides, “If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good.”
But officials say far more than appearance is at stake. Without access to the secure phone links and classified data on his own plane, Kerry was effectively out of the loop during the nine-hour flight from Vienna to Washington. Aides said he had to cancel or reschedule several calls with world leaders and other members of President Barack Obama’s national security team.
“In the world we live in, we do high-stakes diplomacy via phone and secure phone,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “None of that is possible when any secretary of state is flying on a commercial plane.”
