Ricky Wilson/Stuff
A Gulfstream G650 jet, parked at Marlborough Airport in 2019.
A private jet flight has generated online interest after it flew from Nelson to Blenheim on Thursday, a trip that takes less than two hours by car.
The privately owned jet, a Gulfstream G650, arrived at Marlborough Airport from Nelson shortly before 3pm, a flight that took just over 20 minutes.
Travelling by car, the trip between Nelson and Blenheim would have involved a 120km drive on State Highway 6 that took about 1 hour 45 minutes.
A screenshot of the jet’s flightpath was posted on the Reddit forum r/NewZealand on Thursday afternoon, with the caption “Who tf (the f…) needs to take a G6 from Nelson to Blenheim?”.
READ MORE:
* Teen winched to safety off forestry block after being hit in the head by rock
* Residents and businesses asked to conserve water in Picton
* Marlborough lands on ‘good starting point’ for proposed rates rise
Within 24 hours the post received more than 700 upvotes and 300 comments, mostly speculating about why the plane would have flown such a short distance.
”Someone based in Blenheim who had the plane serviced in Nelson?” one comment guessed, another saying it could have been a repositioning flight; “someone flew into Nelson, spent a few days in the area, but is planning to depart from Blenheim”.
Flightradar24
Flight path of the Gulfstream G650 jet, which landed at Marlborough Airport shortly before 3pm on Thursday.
Other comments guessed at the identity of the jet owner, with one comment suggesting it could be “Snoop Dogg”, who was set to perform in Christchurch and Auckland later this month.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration website said the jet was registered to an owner in North Salt Lake, Utah, United States.
The jet only stayed in Blenheim for about four hours before flying to Auckland about 6pm on Thursday night, and it was planning to fly from Auckland to Hong Kong on Saturday morning, according to the Flightradar24 website.
Dean Heiford, chief executive at Marlborough Airport, said private aircraft landed in Blenheim “all the time”.
“I guess coming from Nelson might be a little bit unusual, but they might’ve come from Auckland to Nelson, Nelson to Blenheim, you just don’t know, we don’t keep those sort of records,” he said.
