NATO Secretary General with the Chief of the German Air Force 🇩🇪, 25 APR 2024

Joint press statement
by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with the Chief of the German Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, Laage, Germany, 25 April 2024.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg took to the skies in a German Eurofighter on Thursday 25 April 2024 as part of his visit to the 73 Tactical Air Wing at Laage Air Base in Germany.

Mr Stoltenberg called his flight “a great experience,” adding the Laage Airbase is “important for NATO, because what they do from here is to educate the best pilots in the world and also to support the different air policing missions, which is important in a more challenging security environment.”

During his press conference with Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, Chief of the German Air Force, Mr Stoltenberg also thanked Germany for its crucial role in supporting Ukraine, as the country’s biggest military donor in Europe. He also welcomed Germany’s decision to deliver an additional Patriot to Ukraine.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:

Good afternoon.
So first of all, I would like to thank General Gerhartz for inviting me and also for the pilot Mark, who actually made it possible for me to fly and also to Colonel Schnell who actually hosts us here in this base.

So the Laage Airbase is really an impressive facility, but for me now, this is a once in a lifetime experience to be able to fly in a Eurofighter, and to really see by myself at least to having some kind of understanding of what it’s like to fly an aircraft like that, a very powerful aircraft, very impressive aircraft and by flying it, being able to sit behind, I really feel like I get some understanding of what this is all about.

Then, I would also like to thank everyone who have made this possible, all the people on the ground, all the people who have made the whole mission possible because for me, this is important to try to understand and to get a better and deeper understanding about what this is all about.

The Laage Airbase is important for Germany, it is impressive, not least because it trains so many German pilots, but therefore it's also important for NATO, because what they do from here is to educate the best pilots in the world and also to support the different air policing missions, which is important in a more challenging security environment. And therefore, I would also like to thank the German Air Force, for everything you do for our collective security, for our shared security, for our collective defence, and I would also like to thank you for what you do for Ukraine because Germany and the German Air Force are one of the or –the country in Europe that provides the most support to Ukraine, and you are now actually providing additional Patriot battery. And as far as I understand, you're actually now training the personnel for that Patriot battery.

So it demonstrates that the German Air Force is contributing in so many different ways to NATO, but also to our efforts to help and support the Ukrainians.

So once again, thank you so much for making this possible.
It has been a great experience.
It was comfortable almost all the time. I will say not all the time, but that was the meaning. So I also felt some of the power and some of the gravity forces up in the plane but I think that was part of the experience to also see that.
So thank you so much.

Transcript continues: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/op...
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