Pope Leo XIV’s return flight to Rome was delayed on June 12, 2026, after a mechanical failure grounded the chartered Iberia Airlines plane in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Passengers, including cardinals, Vatican security, and around 80 journalists, had already boarded when the captain announced a system incident. Attempts to restart the engine by towing the aircraft into the wind failed, and Iberia confirmed the issue could not be fixed on site. A replacement plane was dispatched from Madrid.

In a rare diplomatic gesture, Spain’s King Felipe VI offered the pope a seat on his private Falcon jet. Pope Leo accepted and departed Tenerife around 6 p.m. local time, arriving in Rome by 11 p.m. The rest of the delegation followed later on the replacement flight. Due to the aircraft change, the pope did not hold his customary in-flight press conference.

Veteran Vatican correspondent Valentina Alazraki, aboard the original flight, recalled similar travel disruptions during St. John Paul II’s trips, including a diverted landing in Naples in 1986 and an unplanned stop in South Africa in 1988 due to weather. The incident highlights the logistical challenges of papal travel and the occasional role of state diplomacy in resolving them.