What is FlightRadar24, the web to follow planes that breaks record after Nancy Pelosi’s flight

Despite the tension produced, the trip of the president of the House of Representatives of the United States, Nancy Pelosi, could be completed. In Spain we were able to see not only how the North American tour of Asia began, but also how her flight unfolded in real time thanks to Flightradar24.

[El presidente chino avisa a Biden de que “no juegue con fuego” por la posible visita de Pelosi a Taiwán]

This is a flight tracking website that is getting a significant boom in recent days. And it is that Pelosi’s seven-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei could be registered on said website, allowing Internet users to see how she arrived at her destination. Something important, given the military threats that China launched a few hours before the trip took place.

And it is that this site has become a place of pilgrimage for users who want to find out what happens not only with the flights of important personalities, but also with the trips made by some of the most well-known faces and to know where their private planes will land.

FlightRadar24, the trendy website

This completely free website shows international air traffic practically in real time. It is based on the information provided by the automatic dependent surveillance systems o ADS-B, which is present in the vast majority of air vehicles on a mandatory basis.

Thus, aircraft and the like equipped with ADS-B can transmit their location and information to any operator who has a receiver. This surveillance technology is based on an open standard, allowing anyone to configure an ADS-B receiver using certain kits. In this way, FlightRadar24 has managed to form a huge network of 30,000 recipients worldwide.

Obviously FlightRadar24 is not specifically based only on these receivers, since although they have a wide range of action of several hundred kilometers, the terrain and location can cause problems. To address this, FlightRadar24 combines data from these receivers, located on the ground, with official data from the Federal Aviation Administration and data from satellites.

Does this mean that no one is safe from tracking? Because FlightRadar24 uses data from the United States FAA, any user who owns an aircraft can request the Administration delete this information from their websites, so certain flights are carried out completely anonymously, far from the most basic information they can give.

track important flights

Nancy Pelosi’s flight has been a milestone on the website. As specified by the website itself, 2.9 million users they followed at least “a portion” of Pelosi’s SPAR19 flight between Kuala Lumpur and Taipei. The landing was followed by 708,000 people, fully entering the website’s list of records.

It is not for less; let us remember that shortly after the Biden government confirmed Pelosi’s trip to Taipei, China deployed in the Taiwan Strait some Su-35 fighters, entrenching a tension between these powers that helped netizens keep an eye on Pelosi’s landing, as it was being watched in near real time. It reached a point where the web became saturated and he had to limit the activity of the site.

Other Flightradar24 moments have involved activists like Alexei Navalny in 2021, who was forced to return to Moscow due to being the main opposition leader to Putin. In Spain, without going any further, we were able to continue the flight of Juan Carlos I, the emeritus king who had to return from the United Arab Emirates to Spain and whose flight could be followed on FlightRadar24.

You may also like…

Follow the topics that interest you