Ron DeSantis's Cessna Citation Latitude N943FL flies 3 nm in 15-minute hop at Tallahassee

Ron DeSantis's Cessna Citation Latitude, tail number N943FL, departed Tallahassee International Airport at 19:57 UTC on Friday, October 23, 2026, and landed back at the same airport at 20:13 UTC, according to publicly available ADS-B data. The flight lasted 15 minutes. The aircraft is registered to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and is used for executive transport for the Governor of Florida.

The aircraft is a 2019 model with Safran Arrius 2B2 turbofans and a maximum takeoff weight of 30,800 pounds. It is the best-selling Cessna jet and features a flat floor and G5000 avionics. The jet typically seats eight passengers, with capacity for up to nine.

The flight covered a great-circle distance of 3 nm, or 3 miles, at an average ground speed of 12 knots. The highest altitude seen was 1,450 feet, and the top ground speed reached 203 knots. Based on our estimates, the flight burned about 59 US gallons of fuel and produced roughly 565 kg of CO2, about the same as driving a car 1,399 miles. The Cessna Citation Latitude is a super midsize jet with a range of 2,700 nm, a ceiling of 45,000 feet, and seating for up to nine passengers.

In the 30 days before this flight, the aircraft made 40 tracked flights totaling 30.3 hours in the air. Those flights covered about 9,617 nautical miles across 23 airports in one country. The longest leg in that period was from Delray Beach to Philadelphia on October 6, covering 836 nautical miles.

This flight ended at the aircraft's home base, Tallahassee International Airport. In the 30 days before this flight, N943FL made 17 landings at Tallahassee, with the last one on October 23, just hours earlier. The aircraft's usual destinations include Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville. Recent flights by the same owner include a Fort Myers to Tallahassee leg on October 23, a Tallahassee to Fort Myers trip on October 23, and a Miami to Tallahassee flight on October 22.

Ron DeSantis was inaugurated as the 46th Governor of Florida on January 8, 2019, and re-elected in 2022 with a 19-point margin. A former U.S. Navy JAG officer and U.S. Representative (2013–2018), DeSantis launched and withdrew from the 2024 Republican presidential primary before endorsing Donald Trump. The state-owned Cessna has drawn scrutiny in the past, particularly during the 2024 presidential campaign, when flight tracking showed it in early primary states. Florida law prohibits candidates from using state aircraft solely for campaign purposes.

The aircraft's top speed is Mach 0.80, or 446 knots. Tallahassee International Airport has a longest runway of 8,000 feet at an elevation of 81 feet. The estimated fuel burn for the Cessna Citation Latitude is 230 US gallons per hour.

The 15-minute flight, essentially a short circuit from and to the same airport, is an outlier compared to the governor's typical trips across Florida. If Ron DeSantis was aboard, the brief hop would be one of the shortest movements recorded for the FDLE aircraft in recent tracking.