Kristi Noem Bought the Jets. But This is Our Money
Ten jets. $464 million. This is our money. We deserve an explanation.
The jets have been sitting for months, and why is no one saying, we made a mistake?
THE SIGNAL
Here’s what actually happened. Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security approved a $464 million no-bid contract to buy ten used aircraft from Daedalus Aviation, a company that had never held a federal contract before.
First off, I do not like “no-bid,” contracts, right away I’m triggered, someone’s friend just got a deal.
The department said it needed the planes for deportation flights right away, so it skipped the normal bidding process and as the reader you can decide if that’s right.
The New York Times published a report on August 13 that most of those planes have barely flown. Seven older Boeing 737s have been parked for months in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The reason, DHS says it doesn’t have enough crews to operate them. Three others are business jets, and one was potentially a lease to the FBI.
Former Secretary Kristi Noem approved the purchase. Her replacement, Secretary Markwayne Mullin now owns the department and the problem.
THE FAILURE POINT
Here’s where I think the system failed. DHS said this purchase couldn’t wait, maybe that’s true, but where’s the evidence? If the planes sat for months because there weren’t enough crews to fly them, how urgent was the purchase?
Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk that said, “The buck stops here.”
SIGNAL WITHIN THE SIGNAL
This is the management lesson and an example of Norman’s Gap. The measurable distance between external pressure and internal regulation.
The external pressure in this case was a self-inflicted public deportation timeline. Then there was the political pressure to show results.
The other part of the equation, internal regulation, was absent.
We can go through a list of what was missing. If you read my newsletters, you know I like a named owner on everything.
No named owner tracked whether the planes actually flew.
No staffing plan came attached to the purchase.
No pilots or maintenance at DHS.
To balance the equation, as external pressure grew, regulation needed to match it. That didn’t happen. The gap was pressure building while the regulation meant to absorb it did nothing. This is why $464 million in aircraft can sit parked in Louisiana. Then there are two administrations argue about whose signature owns this.
Noem approved a questionable deal. Mullin inherited it.
Here’s the question every organization should ask:
Who owns your result today?
Worth checking where your own team sits on that same gap before assuming it's someone else's problem.
Score your gap →
BEHAVIOR UNDER PRESSURE
This is how people react to pressure when things get difficult. One person pointed to the urgency behind the purchase and the other pointed to a leadership change.
When ownership isn’t clear from the start, we tend to fill in the blanks with a story. We start explaining the past instead of fixing the present.
This isn’t just an accountability problem, it was self-protection. When people don’t know who owns the problem, they protect themselves first
The questions go from “who’s fixing the jets.” To, let’s review everything that happened over the last nine months.
SYSTEM DRIVER - MOS
When we build a management operating system, and pressure rises, the organization doesn’t have to decide who owns the problem, it already knows. This is what a good management system shows accountability and responsibility.
That’s why you build standard work, daily meetings, escalation paths, visual management, and decision rules.
Good systems answer the ownership question so the organization can focus on solving the problem.
None of us were in the room when these decisions were made. But looking at the outcome, it’s fair to ask whether the management system was strong enough for the pressure it faced.
LEADER DRIVER - INTERNAL OPERATING SYSTEM (IOS) - REGULATE
A management system should never leave ownership open to interpretation. Every important decision needs two names:
The person who approved it
The person who owns the result.
Sometimes they’re the same person, sometimes they’re not. But either way, everyone should know before the work begins.
IF YOU DO ONE THING TODAY
What is one practical action you as a leader can do tomorrow? Look at the last three urgent decisions your organization made.
Can you point to one person ( a named person) who owns the result today?
If you can’t answer that in a minute, you’ve found your gap.
PRESSURE / REGULATE
Pressure: 8.8
Regulation: 2.9
No single owner for the outcome.
FINAL SIGNAL
Approving the decision is easy. Living with the result is leadership.
CTA
Find out where your gap is before it costs you. Score your own gap here, takes about three minutes.
mosei.org/gap-diagnostic.html
SOURCES
The New York Times investigation (Aug. 13, 2026); letter from Sens. Patty Murray and Christopher Murphy to DHS; DHS public statement.