The NYPD used a $3 million counterterrorism plane to get Mayor Bill de Blasio back and forth from his Canada vacation to New York for an event Thursday, according to The New York Post.
The mayor had to fly back to pay tribute at a memorial service in the Bronx for a lawn enforcement officer who was murdered, Detective Miosotis Familia, according to The New York Post. De Blasio is taking a weeklong vacation in Quebec.
“NYPD is transporting him in their plane,” de Blasio spokesman Eric Phillips told The Post.
“Their plane” is a Cessna 208 Caravan that cost roughly $3 million and was picked up by the department in 2017, sources said to The New York Post.
The high-tech aircraft has special sensors that can detect at a distance radioactive material used to make “dirty bombs,” The New York Post reports.
Police sources were skeptical of the necessity of the plane in this situation.
“It is very unusual to go on an international flight to go pick up the mayor,” one source said.
“I think it’s excessive, because that wasn’t what that plane was designed to do. It’s designed for counterterrorism measures. To go to Canada to get the mayor? It’s excessive.”
Sources said the aircraft is kept at MacArthur Airport on Long Island. Data from flight-tracker website FlightAware shows a Cessna Caravan with a tail number previously identified by Wired.com as belonging to an NYPD “spy” craft flying from MacArthur at 6:36 a.m. Thursday and landing at Montreal-Trudeau Airport by 8:18 a.m.
The plane departed Montreal less than an hour later and landed at Westchester County Airport near White Plains at 10:58 a.m., The New York Post reports.
By noon, the mayor was speaking at a street co-naming for Familia. The plane later departed Westchester for Montreal at 1:48 p.m., arriving at 3:34 p.m., records show as reviewed by The New York Post.
The trip to Canada was a departure from the plane’s normal pattern of two- to three-hour flights starting and ending at MacArthur, data shows.
“The NYPD, as a longstanding matter of policy, does not comment on specific details regarding the protection of elected officials,” a spokesman said.
“However, careful consideration is made to ensure that the work of the security detail has no impact on other NYPD operations.”