Palin kept Alaska Search & Rescue plane occupied 20% of its Time-Todd b*tched availability

[RamboLiberal]

Governor Sarah Palin used her state law-enforcement agency's twin-engine plane to travel around Alaska, accounting for about 20 percent of its flying time, according to a document obtained by NBC News. The police plane is a King Air turboprop that is primarily used for police-related missions and search and rescue missions.

The governor's flight usage is laid out in a chart prepared by the Alaska Department of Public Safety and obtained by NBC News under the state's Freedom of Information law. (The governor's flight usage is indicated as "Gov" on the chart, and marked in purple.)



On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has touted her credentials as a reformer by discussing how she sold off the state's other plane, a jet, and even listed it on eBay. Her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, had used that plane for travel.

But after Palin's sale of the state jet following her inauguration as governor, the document shows, she did not stop flying on state planes. Gov. Palin used her Public Safety department's prop plane for 110 hours, or 19 percent of its flight time, in 2007 and 2008. The Department of Corrections used it 28 percent of the time, and Alaska Wildlife troopers also used it 28 percent of the time. A spokesman for the McCain Palin campaign defended the flights, saying the governor needed to use the state Public Safety plane because of the remote geography of Alaska. "For the governor to perform her duty visiting rural communities the use of an aircraft was necessary," a campaign spokesman said.

Tensions over Gov. Palin's use of the plane first became public last month, with the release of an affidavit by her husband, Todd Palin. "It seemed like whenever Sarah needed this plane, it was unavailable," Todd Palin wrote. The affidavit was submitted to investigators probing why Palin fired her Commissioner of Public Safety, Walt Monegan, earlier this year. That investigative report was released this month.

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/22/1579781.aspx