LA governor travels in $5.5M plane bought for use by state police officers
Louisiana State Police bought a small passenger plane for $5.5 million in September that Gov. Jeff Landry has been using to travel around the state.
The 2019 model Pilatus PC-12 single-engine turboprop plane was purchased secondhand, according to a Sept. 18 state government receipt from the sale. Federal Aviation Administration records show the state certified it for flight on Oct. 15.
Designed by a Swiss company, the aircraft can be used for cargo transport, medical assistance or search and rescue operations, but it is mostly marketed as a “business” plane that can comfortably seat between six and nine passengers.
“It is truly an executive transport kind of aircraft,” said Thomas Anthony, director of the aviation and security program at the University of Southern California.
Publicly available flight logs show the plane traveling between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, near where the governor lives, and from Lafayette to New Orleans multiple times during the early days of January. Landry spent a lot of time in New Orleans at the beginning of the year following the New Year’s Day terrorist attack on Bourbon Street.
In addition to the governor’s travel, the plane will be used for extraditing prisoners, transporting state police subject matter experts and bringing the state police command staff to emergency meetings, Louisiana State Police spokesman Capt. Nick Manale said in an email.
Manale said state police bought the airplane instead of replacing its two 20-year-old “executive” helicopters the three governors before Landry used to travel within Louisiana. The helicopters have been grounded because they have become difficult to maintain, he said.
“[T]he aircraft are so old and some avionics manufacturers no longer support the model,” Manale said.
Using a plane for the governor’s travel should also save the state money, according to Landry’s office.
“This created both an immediate and long-term savings as the operational cost of the aircraft is significantly lower than operating two helicopters,” Landry spokeswoman Kate Kelly said in a written statement.
Helicopters, which have more moving parts than a plane, tend to break down more often and can be expensive to repair, said Anthony, the aviation expert.
“[The Pilatus] is not down for maintenance as much as a helicopter would be,” he said. “For executive transport, it would be cheaper to use the plane. It’s faster. It can go higher. Frankly, it’s more comfortable.”
Other aircraft purchased
In addition to the plane, Louisiana State Police also bought two new helicopters last spring from Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. in Texas for $6.5 million each.
The Bell 407GXi helicopters arrived in Baton Rouge and were federally certified for flight in August, just a month before state police also purchased the new plane, according to federal and state records.
Lane Evans, managing director for Bell North America, said the new helicopters “further expand” the state police fleet, according to an August press release from the company.
Manale said the helicopters were not meant to replace the older, more expensive ones that governors before Landry used.
Bell markets its 407GXi to law enforcement, emphasizing its efficiency in search and rescue missions. Louisiana State Police, which owns nine Bell aircraft total, performs more than 1,000 public safety missions with its planes and helicopters every year, Manale said.
Louisiana State Police has acquired a 2019 Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, similar to the plane pictured here. The plane was purchased for $5.5 million as the primary aircraft for Gov. Jeff Landry in-state and regional travels, replacing two helicopters that previous governors had used for 20 years. (Photo courtesy Pilatus Aircraft Ltd.)
Yet the new Bell helicopters the state police purchased are also suitable for executive transportation and can seat six passengers.
For most of the past 30 years, Louisiana’s governors have relied almost exclusively on state police helicopters for their in-state travel.
Seven people who were aides to the previous four governors – Republicans Mike Foster and Bobby Jindal and Democrats Kathleen Blanco and John Bel Edwards – don’t recall their old bosses ever flying on a plane owned by state police.
Gubernatorial plane trips were typically on commercial flights or private aircraft that political donors provided, they said. Helicopters handled almost all of the official state trips within Louisiana.
When Foster was in his second term as governor, from 2000-04, Louisiana State Police bought a Beechcraft King Air, similar to a Pilatus, from a military surplus sale. But Foster didn’t use it for himself, said Terry Landry, a former State Police superintendent under Foster who later became a Democratic state representative. Terry Landry is not related to Gov. Jeff Landry.
“I can’t remember ever using that plane for a governor. But then again, Mike Foster didn’t travel a whole lot,” Terry Landry said.
Foster preferred to be ferried around in one of two Bell 407 helicopters, an earlier version of the 407GXi helicopters state police bought this year, Terry Landry said. The governor from Franklin famously talked his State Police pilot into giving him lessons on how to fly this helicopter while he was governor.
Still, plans have been in motion to replace the helicopters, and possibly to purchase the new Pilatus plane, since before Jeff Landry became governor last year.
During Edwards’ final year in office in 2023, he and the Louisiana Legislature budgeted $13 million “for the replacement of one helicopter.”
Edwards’ budget chief, Jay Dardenne, said there was also discussion about requesting money to purchase a plane at that time, but the funding never made it into the budget plan.
In the next cycle, Landry and the Legislature added $8 million for a “replacement aircraft and associated upfitting and training costs” – covering the purchase of the Pilatus.
Money for the helicopters came from the state’s general fund, which can be used for any government purpose. Dollars for the new plane came from the state’s Riverboat Gaming Enforcement Fund, which is supported by gambling companies’ licenses and fees.
Political turbulence
Taxpayer-sponsored plane travel can be controversial.
The purchase of an $8 million plane to shuttle around Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and other state officials raised eyebrows earlier this year. Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ taxpayer-funded flights to political events have also been criticized.
Landry has encountered his own scandal with air travel. The Republican failed to report multiple flights he’s taken on political donors’ private planes while doing official state business when he was attorney general.
The Louisiana Board of Ethics charged Landry with violating state transparency laws in one such incident in 2021. Landry did not disclose that he had flown on a political donor’s plane to and from Hawaii to appear at a states’ attorneys general conference.
The Pilatus is not designed to fly all the way to Hawaii, or even to the West Coast, without stopping for fuel. Anthony said the plane, which he estimates has a range of about 1,500 miles with a full fuel supply, is best used for regional travel, not cross-country or international trips.
Louisiana State Police has purchased two Bell 407GXi helicopters, similar to the model pictured here. (Courtesy Bell Textron Inc.)
It could make Landry less likely to use the private planes of his friends and political donors — and easier for him to keep his whereabouts private.
Landry and lawmakers passed a new law last year that could make it harder to access his travel records with a state police plane.
The governor is now allowed to keep his schedule confidential indefinitely if releasing the information is perceived to pose a security risk to him or his family, Nevertheless, the new law is not supposed to prevent the release of “all records” related to the governor’s transportation.