Merck's Gulfstream G650ER N800MK flies from Trenton to Rome in 8 hours 3 minutes

Merck & Co.'s Gulfstream G650ER, tail number N800MK, departed Trenton Mercer Airport (KTTN) in Ewing Township, New Jersey, on Monday, November 2, 2026, at 12:40 UTC and landed at Ciampino-G. B. Pastine International Airport (LIRA) in Rome, Italy, at 20:43 UTC. The flight took 8 hours and 3 minutes.

The great-circle distance between the two airports is 3,772 nautical miles, or 4,341 miles. N800MK averaged a ground speed of 469 knots and reached a top speed of 544 knots. Its highest altitude during the flight was 41,025 feet. The aircraft burned an estimated 3,783 US gallons of jet fuel, producing about 36.3 metric tons of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 89,946 miles. The Gulfstream G650ER is an ultra long range jet with a range of 7,500 nautical miles, a top speed of Mach 0.925, and a service ceiling of 51,000 feet. It can seat up to 19 passengers.

This was the second landing by a Merck aircraft at Rome in the tracked period from September 18 to October 28, 2026. The previous landing at LIRA was on October 1, 32 days before this flight, by Merck's other Gulfstream G650ER, N822MK. Merck's home base is Morristown Municipal Airport (KMMU), about 3,740 nautical miles from Rome. Usual destinations on file for Merck include Washington Dulles, London Heathrow, Frankfurt Main, Tokyo Haneda, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. In the 30 days before this flight, Merck's two jets made 25 flights totaling 56.5 hours in the air, covering about 23,726 nautical miles. Another tracked aircraft, Tim Draper's Gulfstream G550, landed at Rome about 15 hours before N800MK.

The aircraft used about 50 percent of its range on this trip. Ciampino Airport's longest runway is 7,226 feet, at an elevation of 427 feet. Trenton Mercer's longest runway is 6,006 feet, at 213 feet.

Merck & Co. is a pharmaceutical giant based in Rahway, New Jersey, with its oncology blockbuster Keytruda as a major revenue driver. The company's flight department is located at West Trenton, beside Trenton-Mercer Airport. Merck operates two Gulfstream G650ERs, N800MK and N822MK, both in the contiguous 'MK' N-number block. Three Airbus H160-B helicopters in the same series are registered to Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC at the same West Trenton address. A web search did not reveal any scheduled public appearance, board meeting, or other event tied to Merck or its executives in Rome around the time of this flight.

In the tracked window from September 18 to October 28, 2026, Merck's two jets made 40 flights. The most common destinations were Ewing Township with 14 landings, Newark with 9 landings, and Barcelona with 2 landings. The longest leg in that period was Prague to Ewing Township on October 23, covering 3,587 nautical miles.

N800MK had spent about five days on the ground at Trenton Mercer before this trip, following its previous tracked landing there on October 28. The aircraft is now in Rome, ready for its next journey.

Before this flight, N800MK had flown from Bedford to Ewing Township on October 28, a 49-minute trip of 206 nautical miles. Earlier that same day, it had flown from Ewing Township to Bedford in 55 minutes. The other Merck jet, N822MK, flew from Madrid to Ewing Township on October 26, a 7-hour 20-minute flight of 3,163 nautical miles.