Pope Leo XIV's flight home from Spain was grounded so the king came to his aid

Felipe escorted Leo to his Falcon on the tarmac at the airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. Leo and members of his delegation boarded the plane and took off, more than three hours after he was originally due to leave.

The glitch marked an unusual end to an otherwise successful trip to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands. Leo pressed his migration message and also inaugurated the new tower of the Sagrada Familia basilica.

The Iberia pilot said the engine had failed to start after Leo had boarded. Initial efforts to fix it failed, forcing all passengers to disembark. Iberia said it was sending another plane from Madrid to fetch the Vatican officials and journalists who were not with Leo on the Falcon. The Spanish archipelago is closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula.

It was the first time in decades that a papal flight had experienced a problem so serious that it required the pope to change planes.

Journalists attend into the papal flight after takeoff was delayed at Los Rodeos International Airport, at the Canary Islands, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. Alessandra Tarantino/AP

Alessandra Tarantino/AP

Veteran Vatican reporters, some of whom were on the Iberia plane, recalled a few plane-related incidents during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. During a 1986 return trip from India, John Paul's plane was forced to land in Naples because of a snowstorm in Rome. The passengers and pope took a special train back to Rome.

In 1988 en route to Lesotho, bad weather forced John Paul's plane to land in South Africa, a country he had excluded from his African trip at the time because of apartheid. He was later driven into the kingdom.

Typically on papal trips, the Italian national carrier ITA Airways brings the pope to his destination and that country's national carrier brings him home, with ITA sometimes doing the round trip if the voyage is particularly long or to a place that doesn't have the capacity.

The flights are charters, with the pope, Vatican delegation and security occupying the front of the plane and the 70 or so journalists seated in coach.

Iberia had proudly provided video earlier in the trip of Leo seated in the cockpit, smiling broadly as the plane carried him from Madrid to Barcelona, and then Barcelona to the Canary Islands. In both cases, Spanish military aircraft provided an airborne escort, a sign of respect for visiting dignitaries, and in one clip of the video Leo is seen waving to the escorting pilot.