§A · Dispatch · Landing
If aboard, the Access Industries founder would return from a Mediterranean summer to an unusual Virginia destination.
By celebplanes · 2 min read · Len Blavatnik

Len Blavatnik
Len Blavatnik's Gulfstream G650, registered N761LE, was tracked flying from Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport to Richmond International Airport on August 28, a journey of 10 hours and 42 minutes that crossed the Atlantic at a maximum altitude of 43,025 feet and a top ground speed of 500.6 knots. The aircraft departed Greece shortly after 7 a.m. local and touched down in Virginia just before 6 p.m. Eastern time — a long, direct leg that suggests a return from the European summer rather than a routine business hop.
If aboard, Len Blavatnik would be arriving in the United States the same week that the business calendar begins to stir after the August lull. Richmond is not a typical gateway for a billionaire with Access Industries' portfolio — which spans media (Warner Music Group), chemicals, and real estate — but it sits within a reasonable drive of Washington, D.C., where regulatory and policy meetings often convene. No major conference or high-profile event appears to be underway in Richmond this week, though the airport serves as a convenient alternative to the crowded D.C.-area fields for aircraft of this size.


The flight patterns recorded over the preceding two weeks place Blavatnik's aircraft in a familiar seasonal orbit: shuttling among Athens, Istanbul, Nice, and London. The tail made multiple loops between Istanbul and Athens in mid-August, with a side trip from London to Nice on August 14 — a classic Mediterranean summer itinerary that includes a stop in the French Riviera and the Greek islands. That the final European leg left from Athens, not a private-island airstrip, hints at a standard end-of-August departure.
Aboard the Gulfstream G650


The aircraft
End of article · celebplanes
Len Blavatnik is known to maintain a transatlantic lifestyle, splitting time between London, New York, and other residences. The week's arrival in Virginia could align with a previously unscheduled visit to a property or an investor meeting that hasn't made the news wires. The aircraft's operator filed no special routing that would indicate a detour for refueling or customs clearance — just a straight great-circle line across the North Atlantic, landing wheels-down in the state capital.
For a Gulfstream G650, the Richmond runway is a straightforward destination. The aircraft now sits on the ramp, its transponder quiet. Whether the owner steps off or the jet continues onward is not a question the transponder answers — but the timing of the flight, at the tail end of the European summer, reads as a return to American soil ahead of the fall calendar. There is no yacht to explain the trip; Odessa II, Blavatnik's 73-meter vessel tracked by our partner site celebyachts.com, has no recent AIS fix and is not near this flight. Sometimes a jet simply means the summer ended.