EVER since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew from Malaysia to Taiwan on Tuesday (Aug 2), comments have been made online that a Boeing C-40 Clipper of the US Air Force was the most-tracked aircraft in the world on aviation apps like Flightradar24.
Is this true?
VERDICT:
TRUE
For a couple hours on Tuesday, the most-tracked aircraft in the world was a US Air Force C-40 that took off from the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Selangor as over 300,000 FlightRadar24 users followed every move of the jet that flew as “SPAR19”.
FlightRadar24, a popular aircraft-tracking website, normally has several thousand users following aircraft of interest – including emergency incidents or inaugural flights.
This comes after a paper in Taiwan – the Liberty Times – reported that Pelosi was expected to arrive at 10.20pm local time via private plane at Songshan airport in Taipei.
The airport also has a military base on site at Songshan.
However, there was no official confirmation that Pelosi was on SPAR19 which headed east towards Sabah and Sarawak instead of northeast to Taiwan.
The C-40 Clipper is a military version of the Boeing 737 Next Generation used to transport cargo and personnel, and it is used by the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Aside from SPAR19, the second most-tracked plane on Tuesday was a China Airlines flight from Jakarta to Taipei, with almost 20,000 followers.
Meanwhile, Flightradar24 spokesman Ian Petchenik said that the US Air Force jet was among the site’s five most-tracked planes ever.
The top flight on that list was that of Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, who had 550,000 users viewing his flight when he took a commercial jet to Russia after undergoing treatment following a suspected poisoning attempt on his life.
