Nikolic's plane breaks down, visit to Vatican canceled

BELGRADE - A plane carrying Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic to Vatican had to make a forced landing at the Belgrade airport early Friday due to failure of one engine, so the president's visit to the Holy See has been canceled, Tanjug learned.

According to unofficial information, the engine stopped working while the plane was over the Adriatic Sea. The aircraft, which was at 10,000 meters, was losing altitude for about two kilometers, but an experienced pilot regained control of the plane and returned to Belgrade.

Nikolic was scheduled to meet Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, as well as with the State Secretary of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The Serbian president was also supposed to confer with the Holy See's Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Peter Gallagher, and the head of the Department for Western Balkans.

Stanislava Pak, advisor to the Serbian president, told Tanjug that the visit has been delayed until further notice, adding that a new visit is expected to be scheduled.

"We hope that this will happen soon", Pak said.

The engine failure occurred on the Serbian government's Falcon, and this is just one of many incidents involving this aircraft.

Due to various malfunctions, Falcon 50 made in 1981 and the government's other aircraft Learjet 31a made in 1991, Serbian officials encountered problems on a number of occasions.

Problems on Falcom occurred in 2012 when the then prime minister Ivica Dacic start out on a journey to Cyprus and when the then first deputy prime minister Aleksandar Vucic could not return from a visit to the United Arab Emirates. The aircraft also run into problems while carrying former officials Vuk Jeremic, Mirko...