2 hours ago
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Robert Jackman
September 18, 2025 — 5:00am
Why did more than one million internet users monitor the progress of a seemingly normal flight from the Channel Island of Guernsey to Manchester last month? After weeks of speculation, the answer remains the same: no-one really knows.
Even the world’s biggest website for flight tracking enthusiasts, Flightradar24, says it has no idea why so many of its members were fixated on this particular plane.
If there’s one thing we do know, though, the Guernsey flight wasn’t the first time that a plane has been tracked by hundreds of thousands of internet users.
Over the past decade, the burgeoning subculture of online flight tracking (i.e. following planes on a digital map) has gone from a niche and nerdy pastime to an established tool for internet fact-finders.
The examples are plentiful. Earlier this month, tens of thousands of soccer fans tracked a flight from Antwerp to Manchester, looking for signs that a certain player – Belgian goalkeeper Senne Lammens – was on his way to sign for Manchester United.
Snooping on flights has now become a regular part of transfer deadline day, as fans look to see which deals might be inked before the UK Premier League’s cut-off point.
Not that it’s just sports fans who are following planes for fun. On social media, a dedicated news account shares the latest whereabouts of Taylor Swift’s private jets (albeit with a 24-hour delay), feeding the insatiable appetite for gossip about the globe-conquering pop star.
Two years ago, the account revealed how Swift had flown enough kilometres to make seven round-the-world trips.
Then there are the examples of political intrigue. In summer 2022, almost three million people tracked a US government plane carrying Democrat politician Nancy Pelosi as she made a contentious visit to Taiwan.
So many people tried to log on to track the final flight of Queen Elizabeth II, as her body was flown from Edinburgh to London, it caused FlightRadar24 to crash. An estimated 5 million people were trying to track the flight.
“Flight tracking used to be a much more niche hobby,” says self-confessed flight tracking enthusiast Colin Waddell. “I think it was a mixture of people who were into things like AM radio and old-fashioned plane-spotting; the sort of people who might have an antenna in their garden, for example.”
Then came the arrival of freely available platforms, like Flightradar24, that gathered the data and provided it for free to anyone who cares to look. Over the years, flight tracking has cast off its nerdy image and become one of the go-to tools for internet sleuths and fan-club types.
Accessible data
How does flight tracking work in the first place? Planes are equipped with something called ADS-B transmitters, which provides data on their location. That data can be intercepted – easily and legally – by anyone with a background in radio communications, who can publish it online or provide it to a bigger platform like Flightradar24.
The explosion in accessible flight data has been a boon for frequent travellers. “I always use flight-tracking software to get a sense of how consistently certain flights operate on schedule, or where the inbound aircraft is coming from,” says Ben Schlappig, editor of US-based frequent-flyer website One Mile at a Time.
If you know how flight routes work, you can even use the data to avoid getting stuck waiting hours at the airport, he suggests – albeit at your own risk. For example, if a long-haul flight runs back-and-forth between two destinations and the in-bound flight has been delayed, you know you don’t have to rush to the airport.
Of course, this kind of information wasn’t exactly a secret beforehand. But the rise of flight-tracking platforms has made it easier to get hold of, reducing the need to wait for the updates from the airlines themselves.
When it comes to private jets, flight tracking hasn’t been without controversy. In 2022, Elon Musk used his position as Twitter’s owner to suspend a user who was posting data on the whereabouts of his private plane.
Other accounts have focused on planes owned by Kim Kardashian, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump.
Then there is the practice of following corporate jets, often in the hope of gathering some valuable market intelligence. Flight-tracker forums have been awash with tales of clued-in enthusiasts using flight data to decipher the movements of oil majors and mining companies, in order to work out who might be on the verge of a juicy discovery.
Leisure pursuit
For all the intriguing stories, the vast majority of users prefer to follow planes for the fun of it, say insiders. “I spoke to a lot of traditional plane spotters who use flight tracking to help them get as many facts and data as possible on the flights they see going overhead,” says Colin Waddell.
Four years ago, Mr Waddell even designed his own physical flight tracker, using a tiny Raspberry Pi computer and a digital LED display to create a device that you can display on your fridge or desk. The tracker will receive data on any flights going overhead and display the information on the LED screen.
And what of the plane that was followed by 1 million people on the short trek from Guernsey? The fact that the airline behind the flight, Guernsey carrier Aurigny, has dismissed suggestions that there was anything out of the ordinary hasn’t stopped the speculation online, with some internet users even suggesting – seemingly without evidence – the plane may have been carrying the crown jewels.
At the other end of the scale, one less exciting theory aired on flight tracking forums is that the initial numbers could have been a glitch. Then once thousands of Flightradar24 users started clicking on the flight (which would have appeared in the “most watched” chart) to see what was happening, the mistake became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One person who probably doesn’t have any special insight is the pilot. “I think a lot of pilots have no idea that so many people are following their flights,” says Colin Waddell. The data itself is transmitted automatically, and the flight doesn’t receive any notifications when it is accessed by those on the ground.
As for what pilots might make of the idea that their location is currently being displayed on a custom-made fridge monitor some 35,000 feet below them, you can only imagine they’d be as surprised as anyone else.
Aircraft loved by flight tracking enthusiasts
Antonov AN-225
The Antonov AN-225, a giant cargo jet, of which only one was built, was regularly the most tracked aircraft on Flightradar24 prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but was destroyed in the early days of the war at Hostomel Airport.
Airbus A380
The world’s largest commercial airliner first flew in 2005 quickly became a flight tracking favourite. Emirates, the world’s largest operator of the A380, received the final A380 ever built in December 2021.
Airbus Beluga & BelugaXL
The curious looking Airbus Beluga (A300-600ST) and BelugaXL (A330-743L) are designed to move major aircraft components such as wings and fuselage sections.
Oldest aircraft
Some of the most tracked aircraft on Flightradar24 are the oldest, such as the OB-2158-P Sky Bus Douglas DC-8-73CF which is over 50 years old.
Newest aircraft
Test flights and new deliveries are a continual draw for flight trackers around the world.
Boeing 747s Classics
The last remaining 747 ‘Classics’ (747-100, -200, -300, and -SP and the more modern -400 and -8 Intercontinental) tend to see a lot of flight tracking interest.
Avro Lancaster
There are only two airworthy Lancasters left. Both are displayed regularly and become flight-tracking favourites when they are.
DC-3
Despite being first introduced in 1936, there are still many DC-3 variants flying. Flightradar24 doesn’t pick up every DC-3 flight, however, as many are not equipped with ADS-B capabilities.
The Telegraph, London
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