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Penn State Chartered a Jet to Fly Its AD and President to Land Matt Campbell

A Challenger 350 charter (N468CE) carried Penn State's leadership to Ames, Iowa on Dec. 4 — the night AD Pat Kraft and President Neeli Bendapudi sealed the Matt Campbell hire at his home.

Dec 4, 2025N468CE
Flight
  1. Chicago/Aurora, ILAmes, IAKARR → KAMWDec 4, 20255:50 PM6:40 PMEST50m

Penn State owns no jet, so to reach Matt Campbell it chartered one: N468CE, a Challenger 350 run by L.J. Aviation, flew out of the New York area, made a brief central-Pennsylvania/Chicago-area pickup, and landed in Ames at 5:40 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4 — the night reporting says AD Pat Kraft and President Neeli Bendapudi met Campbell at his home with a term sheet.

The jet's owner is a CentiMark/Dunlap family company in Canonsburg with no Penn State connection — so this was a hired lift, not a booster's plane. ADS-B places the aircraft, not its passengers, but the route, the date and the AD-and-president trip line up precisely.

Selected flight record
Flight record
Route
KARR → KAMW
Departure
Dec 4, 2025, 5:50 PM ET
Arrival
Dec 4, 2025, 6:40 PM ET
Airborne
50m
Sources & methodology

Sources: ESPN (Inside PSU's 58-day search); Altoona Mirror; FAA registry / FlightAware (N468CE → Sovereign of the Sky LLC); JetSweep ADS-B archive.

espn.com ↗altoonamirror.com ↗flightaware.com ↗
Aircraft & ownership
Aircraft
Tail
N468CE
FAA type
CL35 · Bombardier Challenger 350 family
Group
College FB
Registry
United States
Attribution
Registered owner
Sovereign of the Sky
current registry · not dated to this flight
Operator
L. J. Associates, Inc.part 135
certificate ZESA · observed 2025-11-22 and 2026-05-01, not on this date
Program tie
L. J. Associates, Inc. — confirmed prior servicedocumented
funnel confirmed service · 1 confirmed flight_reason_labels for penn-state on L. J. Associates, Inc. (1 documented, 1 approved/published) across 1 tail(s): N468CE; first 2025-12
Social graphics
ADS-B data is a public aircraft-movement record. This page separates observed movement from cited context and avoids passenger claims unless a source document supports them.