DHS Secretary's 24-Year-Old Coast Guard Jet Loses Engine Mid-Flight, Lands Safely at Reagan National

A Coast Guard jet carrying Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin lost its right engine mid-flight on Wednesday, September 2, and made an emergency landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Nobody was hurt. The plane that nearly went down is exactly the aircraft DHS has spent more than a year warning was too old to keep flying.

The pilot radioed air traffic control around 1:35 p.m. ET: "We just lost our right engine and would like to declare an emergency and immediate landing at DCA," according to audio reviewed by CBS News and multiple other outlets. The pilot reported 14 people on board and 2.5 hours of fuel remaining. Fox 5 DC reported Mullin was traveling from Georgia to Washington at the time.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said the plane "landed safely, was thoroughly checked by Airports Authority Fire and Rescue personnel then proceeded off the runway," and that there was no disruption to other flights.

Mullin posted on X praising the crew: "The United States Coast Guard pilots made the single engine landing feel routine. No panic, just straight professionalism. After we landed, the pilots told me that was a first for them! We could not have been in better hands."

The cause of the engine failure hadn't been determined as of Wednesday night, according to the Epoch Times, and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News or CBS News.

The Plane DHS Already Said Was Too Old

The aircraft is a C-37A, the military version of a Gulfstream V, that's been in Coast Guard service since 2002, per the Daily Wire and Epoch Times. DHS said last year the jet was "22 years old and faces significant avionics and communications obsolescence issues," according to CBS News, and separately described it as "well beyond operational usage hours for a corporate aircraft," per Fox News.

That warning came attached to a funding request. DHS initially asked for roughly $50 million in its fiscal year 2025 spending plan to replace the executive jet. By October 2025, that request had grown into a plan to buy two Gulfstream G700s for an estimated $172 million to $200 million, according to Fox News and the Daily Wire.

Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the request at a May 20 Senate hearing, saying the existing jet had been in service "beyond its usable hours," per CBS News. The price jump drew bipartisan scrutiny. Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and LaMonica McIver of New Jersey wrote to Noem questioning why replacing executive aircraft took priority over upgrading aging Coast Guard search-and-rescue planes, comparing it to President Trump's own scrutinized push to accept a $400 million jet from a foreign government, according to Fox News. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois separately pressed Coast Guard leadership on the purchase during an appropriations hearing, per CBS News.

CBS News reported the first of the two new G700s was delivered in January 2026, but the second has not been delivered. Because the second new jet still hasn't arrived, the older aircraft that lost an engine was used for Mullin's Wednesday flight instead of the new jet.

Oversight Fight Still Open

The scrutiny hasn't stopped with the G700s. The Daily Wire reported that in August, Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) sent Mullin a letter questioning DHS's acquisition of 12 aircraft total, including five luxury jets tied to senior officials such as FBI Director Kash Patel and border czar Tom Homan. The senators argued Congress never authorized the purchases and demanded records on flight logs and costs.

DHS has a genuine safety argument that decades-old planes with obsolete avionics need replacing, and Wednesday's engine failure is a data point for that case. But the department also blew past its own $50 million estimate by more than 3x, and lawmakers say they still don't have clear documentation on why five "luxury" jets for individual officials were necessary or who signed off on it. DHS hasn't yet answered Murray and Murphy's records request, and the second G700 still hasn't arrived, meaning the secretary is still flying on the aircraft his own department called unsafe.

No investigation into Wednesday's engine failure has been announced. The National Transportation Safety Board's involvement, if any, has not been confirmed by DHS or the Coast Guard as of this writing.