Rick Caruso's Gulfstream G650ER flies 17 miles from Van Nuys to Los Angeles

Rick Caruso's Gulfstream G650ER, tail number N1759C, flew from Van Nuys Airport to Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, November 9, 2026. The aircraft departed Van Nuys at 19:05 UTC and landed at Los Angeles at 00:58 UTC. The flight took 5 hours and 53 minutes.

The great-circle distance between the two airports is 17 nautical miles, or about 20 miles. The aircraft reached a highest altitude of 43,000 feet and a top ground speed of 518 knots. Celebplanes estimates the flight burned about 2,767 US gallons of fuel and produced about 26.6 metric tons of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 65,804 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, a ceiling of 51,000 feet, and seating for up to 19 passengers.

This was the first tracked landing at Los Angeles International in the 30-day window before the flight. The aircraft's home base is Van Nuys Airport. In the 30 days before this flight, N1759C visited five airports in two countries and flew about 13,441 nautical miles. The longest leg in that period was from Luton, England to San Francisco on November 7, 2026, covering 4,636 nautical miles. Other tracked aircraft that landed at Los Angeles in the 24 hours before this landing included Diane von Furstenberg's Gulfstream G550, which landed about 22 hours earlier, Steve Wynn's Gulfstream G700, which landed about 2 hours earlier, and Lachlan Murdoch's Gulfstream G800, which landed under an hour earlier.

Rick Caruso is a Los Angeles real estate developer. His company, Caruso, built outdoor shopping centers such as The Grove and the Americana at Brand, and owns the Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel in Montecito. He served on the city's police and water boards and ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022. The FAA lists TVPX Aircraft Solutions as trustee for N1759C, a trust that hides the real owner, but spotter photos of this tail are captioned Caruso.

This flight from Van Nuys to Los Angeles covered a very short distance but took nearly six hours in the air, likely due to holding patterns or air traffic delays.

The aircraft's average ground speed on this flight was 3 knots. Van Nuys Airport has a longest runway of 8,001 feet at an elevation of 802 feet. Los Angeles International Airport has a longest runway of 12,894 feet at an elevation of 125 feet.

In the 30 days before this flight, N1759C made six tracked flights totaling 29.8 hours in the air. Celebplanes estimates those flights produced about 134,598 kilograms of CO2. The aircraft burned an estimated 470 US gallons of fuel per hour.

Before this flight, the aircraft had been on the ground for about 45 hours. Its previous tracked landing was at Van Nuys on November 7, 2026, after a 1-hour 12-minute flight from San Francisco covering 278 nautical miles.