More flap over 'Murkowski's jet'

In an attempt to burnish her no-nonsense, fiscally-conservative credentials, then-Gov. Sarah Palin repeatedly invoked the image of the Westwind II jet that her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, bought and refused to let go of during his tenure.

"While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for," Palin told a besotted crowd at the Republican National Convention last year. "That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay."

She did list it on eBay, but it never sold on the auction site. Instead, Valdez resident Larry Reynolds bought it from the Alaska Public Safety Commission directly so that he could take rich businessmen on trophy hunting trips in the Russian Far East.

That should have been the end of the saga. But Reynolds started finding problems with his used jet.

Among other things, Reynolds alleges, there were problems with the flap actuators -- the things that move up and down during landing and takeoff. The first time he flew the jet, it went into a bank. "Imagine if Sarah Palin actually was in it," he said in a recent phone interview from his second home in Dallas, where he is in the real estate business.

Reynolds eventually came back at the state. He told an administrative law judge that the state knew of the problems but didn't disclose them when it sold him the plane for $2.1 million in 2007. He said he paid such a high price because he assumed the state had taken good care of the jet, better so than a private company might have. Reynolds got the jet fixed at a cost of $55,000 in parts and about another $50,000 in labor.

Reynolds argued that the state should reimburse him the $55,000, but the judge disagreed with him earlier this month. The judge said that even if there were problems with the jet, Reynolds didn't make a strong case that the state was required to turn over maintenance documents when it sold him the plane. Further, according to the newsletter form the Alaska Department of Law, "any express warranties made in statements by the state's mechanics were not part of the basis of the bargain."

Reynolds called the state case a "fraud," and said he plans to appeal in a Texas federal court; a "real court," he added.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda@alaskadispatch.com