After making controversial comments Justin Trudeau is stuck in India along with his delegation as his plane broke down on his way back.

A backup plane and spare parts are en route to India for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau will either fly home on the backup plane or wait for the original plane to be repaired, said a government official, speaking to Bloomberg on condition they weren't named. The official declined to give details about what exactly needs replacing.

"The Canadian Armed Forces continue their best efforts to get the Canadian delegation home," said a statement from Trudeau's office. "Their latest update shows an earliest possible departure of Tuesday late afternoon. The situation remains fluid."

The plane drama only adds to Trudeau's woes in his travels to India. His first trip in 2018 became a diplomatic disaster after it emerged that a man who had been convicted of attempting to assassinate an Indian politician on Canadian soil somehow ended up on Canada's guest list for an event.

In Canada, Trudeau's travel delays also stirred debate about the crumbling nature of Canada's state infrastructure.

The Airbus A310s that carry Trudeau and other top officials abroad date back to the 1980s and are badly showing their age. They are so old they require refueling stops for Trudeau's trips to Asia, often with stopovers in Alaska and Japan before reaching their final destination.

Even so, the planes touched off a controversy in the early 1990s when the government of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney bought and retrofitted them. Mulroney's successor, Jean Chretien, famously derided one them as a "flying Taj Mahal" and refused to use it for official trips for fear of looking out of touch with ordinary Canadians.