President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s private jet aborted take-off from Lyon on Thursday night after the pilots reported a technical problem with the aircraft.
The 77-year-old leader was already onboard and the plane was ready for take-off when the pilots reported a technical issue with the luxuriously-fitted Boeing 737-700 owned by Royal Jet of the United Arab Emirates.
Mnangagwa had just attended the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment Conference in the French city and was returning home on the 20-year-old aircraft.
A source said: “The president and his delegation were forced to disembark.
“Another plane was sent from Abu Dhabi to pick them up the following day (October 11) and they arrived in Harare early on Saturday.”
Flight tracking websites on Sunday showed that the Boeing 737 was still grounded in Lyon.
On Sunday, a Twitter account run by Charamba posted pictures of the president eating mazondo/amangqina while inside a plane, believed to be the replacement aircraft that finally flew him to Harare.
The interior of the plane looked slightly more cramped than on the plane that took him to Dubai. The Boeing 737’s interior has been filmed several times by journalists, and it features a more spacious seating set-up.
“On our way from Lyon, France, President ED treated all of us his senior staff members to a surprise: sadza nemazondo! Having spent a few days without that staple, and least expecting it in mid-air, above the land of Gauls, we hungrily made sure there was no dry season,” Charamba wrote, using his Twitter handle @jamwanda2.
He said in another tweet: “The pots; the President; the salt and the zondo! The little-known side of President ED Mnangagwa is the gastronomic one! He loves his curdled milk or hodzeko in Shona; loves bony Zimbabwean beef, including mazondo. He moderately drinks, and strictly from January 1 to June 30.”
Charamba suggested that Mnangagwa’s eating habits were “metaphoric of his entire outlook to life” – a suggestion Mnangagwa is humble.
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