Bill Gates's Gulfstream G650ER N887GV flies from Mountain View to Seattle

Bill Gates's Gulfstream G650ER, tail N887GV, flew from Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View to King County International Airport, also known as Boeing Field, in Seattle on Sunday, October 25, 2026. The aircraft departed at 22:07 UTC and landed at 23:43 UTC, spending 1 hour and 37 minutes in the air. The great-circle distance was 608 nautical miles, or 699 miles.

The flight covered 8 percent of the aircraft's range of 7,500 nautical miles. The Gulfstream G650ER reached a top ground speed of 549 knots and a maximum altitude of 43,025 feet. Our estimate puts fuel burned at about 757 US gallons, producing about 7,275 kilograms of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 18,008 miles. The aircraft typically seats 12 passengers and can carry up to 19.

This was the fourth landing at Mountain View in the 30-day window for all of Bill Gates's tracked aircraft, and the third landing at Seattle. The home base on file is Boeing Field in Seattle. Usual destinations include Palm Springs, West Palm Beach, Las Vegas, and Bozeman. In the days before this trip, N887GV flew from San Jose to Mountain View earlier on October 25, and from Epping, Essex to San Jose on October 24. Other tracked aircraft that landed at Seattle in the 24 hours before this landing included a Gulfstream G650 linked to Steve Ballmer, about 19 hours earlier, and a Gulfstream G650 linked to Len Blavatnik, under an hour earlier.

Bill Gates is a Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist, and investor with a net worth estimated at $104 to $107 billion. He focuses on global health, development, and climate philanthropy through the Gates Foundation, Gates Ventures, and Breakthrough Energy. His home base is in Seattle, and he owns a property in Medina, Washington, near Boeing Field. A web search did not turn up a public event tied to Bill Gates or his organizations near Seattle on this date.

This flight follows a pattern of short hops around California and the Pacific Northwest in recent weeks. The aircraft had been on the ground for about two hours before this trip, after landing at Mountain View earlier on October 25. The flight to Seattle used a small share of the aircraft's range, leaving plenty of margin for onward travel.

The aircraft's average ground speed on this leg was 377 knots. Moffett Federal Airfield has a longest runway of 9,197 feet at an elevation of 32 feet. Boeing Field's longest runway is 10,007 feet at 21 feet elevation.

In the 30-day window ending October 25, all of Bill Gates's tracked aircraft made 32 flights. The most common destinations were Mountain View with four landings and Seattle with three. The longest leg in that period was from Epping, Essex to San Jose on October 24, covering 4,659 nautical miles.

Other tracked aircraft that landed at Seattle in the 24 hours before this landing included a Bombardier Challenger 350 linked to Daniel Baty about five hours earlier, a Bombardier Challenger 604 linked to Nordstrom about four hours earlier, a Cessna 560XL Citation XLS+ linked to Columbia Bank about three hours earlier, and a Gulfstream G280 linked to Martin J. Lott under an hour earlier.