Vinod Khosla's Gulfstream V flies 20 miles from San Jose to Oakland in 13 minutes

Vinod Khosla's Gulfstream V, tail N85NV, departed Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport at 00:06 UTC on Friday, October 30, 2026, and landed at Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport at 00:19 UTC. The flight took 13 minutes, according to public ADS-B data collected by Celebplanes. The aircraft reached a top ground speed of 216 knots and a highest altitude of 2,200 feet.

The great-circle distance from San Jose to Oakland is 20 nautical miles, or 23 miles. The Gulfstream V averaged 91 knots ground speed on the leg. Celebplanes estimates the flight burned about 95 US gallons of fuel, producing roughly 909 kilograms of CO2, about the same as driving a car 2,249 miles. The Gulfstream V is an ultra long range business jet that typically seats 14 to 16 passengers and has a service ceiling of 51,000 feet.

This is the 12th tracked landing at Oakland for any of Vinod Khosla's aircraft in the 30 days before this flight. The last one was on October 27, 2026, when the owner's other jet, N604SB, a Bombardier Challenger 604, landed at Oakland after a 12-mile hop from San Francisco. Vinod Khosla's home base on file is Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport, 26 nautical miles from Oakland. Usual destinations include Boeing Field in Seattle, Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, Aspen, Austin, and London Heathrow. In the 30 days before this flight, all of the owner's aircraft made 36 flights, spent 104.1 hours in the air, and visited 27 airports in 12 countries.

Vinod Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and founded Khosla Ventures in 2004. In September 2026, Vinod, his wife Neeru, and their son Neal Khosla closed on the purchase of the Seattle Seahawks from the Paul G. Allen estate for $9.612 billion, the highest price ever paid for an NFL team. A search of Bay Area business news did not turn up any scheduled public appearance or board meeting for Vinod Khosla in Oakland around this date.

The short hop from San Jose to Oakland is a routine repositioning for an ultra long range jet.

The Gulfstream V has a range of 6,675 nautical miles and a top speed of Mach 0.885, or 488 knots. It was the first ultra-long-range Gulfstream. The aircraft burns an estimated 430 US gallons of fuel per hour.

San Jose's longest runway is 11,000 feet at an elevation of 62 feet. Oakland's longest runway is 10,520 feet at 9 feet. The most common destination was Oakland with 11 landings, followed by Seattle with 5 and Denver with 2.

The aircraft had been on the ground about one hour before this flight. The longest leg in that period was Rotterdam to San Jose on October 29, 2026, covering 4,755 nautical miles in 10 hours 37 minutes. Recent flights also included Kuwait City to Rotterdam and Dubai to Kuwait City.