|
Flightradar24
Flightradar24 is a Swedish Internet-based service that shows real-time aircraft flight tracking information on a map. It includes flight tracking information, origins and destinations, flight numbers, aircraft types, positions, altitudes, headings and speeds. It can also show time-lapse replays of previous tracks and historical flight data by airline, aircraft, aircraft type, area, or airport.[2] It aggregates data from multiple sources, but, outside of the United States, mostly from crowdsourced information gathered by volunteers with ADS-B receivers and from satellite-based ADS-B receivers.[3] The service is available via a web page or mobile device apps. The Guardian considers the site to be "authoritative".[4] It is the largest ADS-B network in the world with over 40,000 connected receivers. Over 200,000 flights tracked per day, with over 4 million users per day. It is also used by most major airlines and others in the aviation industry, including Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer.[5] HistoryThe service was founded by two Swedish aviation enthusiasts in 2006[6] as Flygbilligt.com[7] and later Flygradar.nu[8] for Northern and Central Europe. The service was opened in 2009, allowing anyone with a suitable ADS-B receiver to contribute data.[6] The service received extensive exposure in 2010, when international media relied on it to describe the flight disruption over the North Atlantic and Europe caused by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruptions.[9][10][11] Flightradar24 came at the turn of the month July–August 2010 as an iOS application.[12] In 2014, it was used by multiple major news outlets following several high-profile crashes: in March after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370,[13] in July after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine,[14] and in December when Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 went missing. Flightradar24 reported that its web traffic increased to around 50 times normal, which caused some access congestion to users.[citation needed] In November 2015, The Guardian newspaper reported that Metrojet Flight 9268 en route to Saint Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport had broken up in the air based on information available from Flightradar24.[4] From 3 March 2020, ADS-B data collected by satellite was made available to all users. Aircraft located using satellite data are coloured blue on the map, and yellow if located by terrestrial receivers.[15] In February 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the website crashed due to an influx of visitors tracking flights in and around Ukraine.[16] In August 2022, the plane carrying Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, SPAR19, became the most tracked flight to date, tracked by over 708,000 people as it landed in Taipei, with over 2,900,000 following at least a portion of the flight.[17] In September 2022, the plane carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II was attempted to be tracked by 6,000,000 users in the first minute after the transponder activated, with 4,790,000 following a portion of the flight, becoming the most tracked flight of all time. The website processed 76,200,000 requests related to the flight over its course.[18][19] Initially, the site crashed due to the sheer number of users.[20] In 2023, Flightradar24 collaborated with Infinite Flight to offer detailed 2D and 3D models as well as liveries of the airlines.[21] Tracking Flightradar24 aggregates data from six sources:[23]
PrivacyThe site blocks some ADS-B information from display for "security and privacy" purposes.[23] For instance, the position of the Japanese Air Force One aircraft used by the Japanese emperor and prime minister was visible on the site until August 2014, when the Japanese Ministry of Defense requested that the information be blocked.[24] This has subsequently meant that the aircraft no longer has its flight track posted online or on the site. See alsoReferences
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to FlightRadar24. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
