Why not? It isn’t as if there is any terror threat to New York City that might require use of this plane, right? De Blasio made that threat a thing of the past by dismantling the NYPD’s counterterror surveillance program, thereby ending all resentment Muslims may have had toward the city — right?
“De Blasio used a $3M counterterrorism plane to zip home from vacation,” by Yoav Gonen, Larry Celona, Tina Moore and Max Jaeger, New York Post, July 5, 2018:
The NYPD used a $3 million counterterrorism plane to shuttle Mayor Bill de Blasio back and forth from his Canada vacation to the Big Apple for an event Thursday, The Post has learned.
Hizzoner, who is in Quebec on a weeklong respite, briefly flew back to the Bronx for a memorial for slain Detective Miosotis Familia.
“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.
The high-tech aircraft is outfitted with special sensors that can detect at a distance radioactive material used to make “dirty bombs.”
Police sources questioned the use of a special plane for mayoral transportation.
“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….