Ron DeSantis's Cessna Citation Latitude flies from Tallahassee to Lake Wales in 40 minutes

Ron DeSantis's Cessna Citation Latitude, tail number N943FL, departed Tallahassee International Airport at 18:09 UTC on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, and landed at Lake Wales Municipal Airport at 18:50 UTC. The flight took 40 minutes. The aircraft is a 2019 model registered to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and is used for executive transport for the governor.

The flight covered a great-circle distance of 209 nautical miles, or 240 miles, at an average ground speed of 311 knots. The highest altitude seen was 19,000 feet, and the top ground speed reached 410 knots. Based on our estimates, the flight burned about 155 US gallons of fuel and produced roughly 1,485 kg of CO2, about the same as driving a car 3,675 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.

The flight used about 8% of the aircraft's range. The departure runway at Tallahassee International Airport is 8,000 feet long at an elevation of 81 feet. The arrival runway at Lake Wales Municipal Airport is 5,400 feet long at an elevation of 127 feet. The distance from the home base to the arrival airport is 208 nautical miles.

This was the first tracked landing at Lake Wales in the 30 days before this flight. The aircraft's home base is Tallahassee International Airport. Its usual destinations include Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville. Recent flights by the same owner include an Orlando to Tallahassee leg on November 2, a Tallahassee to Orlando trip on October 30, and an Inverness to Tallahassee flight on October 28.

Before this flight, the aircraft had been on the ground for about 47 hours since its previous tracked landing at Tallahassee on November 2. In the 30 days before this flight, the most common destinations were Tallahassee with 18 landings, Pinellas Park with 4 landings, and Pensacola with 4 landings. The longest leg in that period was from Austin to Tallahassee on October 17, covering 689 nautical miles.

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 jet attracted significant scrutiny during the 2024 presidential campaign. Open-source flight tracking revealed that the FDLE Citation Latitude was deployed to New Hampshire, Iowa, and other early primary states simultaneously with DeSantis campaign events, raising transparency questions about whether state aviation resources were subsidizing political travel.

The flight adds another data point to the ongoing tracking of N943FL, which has logged 40 flights in the past 30 days, covering about 7,657 nm. The aircraft remains a key part of Florida's executive transport, and its movements will continue to be monitored by celebplanes.