A plane carrying Missouri Governor Mike Parson had to alter its flight plan Friday morning due to a “problem with a required system,” according to state officials.
A spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Kelli Jones, told KSMU the Missouri State Highway Patrol pilot notified the governor of the problem after taking off from Columbia Regional Airport on the way to Kansas City. The pilot recommended that the aircraft immediately return to Columbia, she said.
Jones said "there was no emergency," and both the flight and the landing were otherwise without incident. She did not have further details of the exact problem, she said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol headquarters and the patrol’s Troop S, based in Jefferson City, both told KSMU they did not have information on the incident, and the patrol’s aircraft division did not provide an immediate comment.
A spokesman for the City of Columbia, Steven Sapp, said airport officials did not receive an emergency alert and did not bring emergency responders to the airfield.
According to a press release from Parson’s office, the governor's scheduled visit to Park University was cancelled because of the problem.
In October of 2000, former Missouri governor Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash in a wooded area south of St. Louis.
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