Second plane sent to bring Trudeau home from luxury Jamaica vacation after breakdown (2024)

Friday’s return home from his Christmas vacation in Jamaica didn’t go smoothly for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: The CC-144 Challenger business jet that took him there on Boxing Day broke down, requiring the RCAF to dispatch a rescue plane to get the relatively new aircraft back in the sky.

It was the second time in nearly four months that a breakdown prompted the Royal Canadian Air Force to dispatch rescue aircraft to bring home Canada’s prime minister from an overseas visit.

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Department of National Defence spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin told the National Post a maintenance issue with the aircraft was discovered on Tuesday during a routine inspection.

“A maintenance team and aircraft were then dispatched and returned the aircraft to serviceability on January 3,” she said.

“The aircraft remained in the area as a back-up if necessary, and the prime minister was able to return on the original aircraft.”

Trudeau arrived in Montego Bay on Boxing Day aboard RCAF Challenger 144620 — one of two new Challenger 600 jets purchased by the RCAF in 2020.

Shortly after noon on Friday, RCAF Challenger 144619 departed Ottawa International Airport, ferrying a repair party to Jamaica.

Both planes departed Jamaica later in the day, roughly 30 minutes apart, arriving safely back in Ottawa.

The Department of National Defence has not revealed the nature of the issue.

As reported by National Post this week, Trudeau and his family, including his estranged wife Sophie, were given a free stay at a luxurious Jamaican resort owned by an acquaintance of his late father’s. The villa the prime minister stayed in normally rents for $9,300 a night.

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The Prime Minister’s Office had initially said Trudeau was paying for the trip, butchanged its explanationmore than a week later, saying he was staying “at no cost at a location owned by family friends.”

In September, the prime minister’s planned departure from last year’s G20 summit in New Delhi didn’t happen after his aircraft — a 30-year-old CC-150 Polaris transport plane — broke down, prompting the RCAF to dispatch repair crews from Canada as well as a second aircraft.

Late last year, the RCAF took delivery of the first of a series of planes meant to replace the Polaris, the CC-330 Husky.

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