What do blue planes on Flightradar24 mean?

Blue: Aircraft displayed as blue icons are currently being tracked via satellite. Satellites are collecting the ADS-B signals from aircraft and transmitting them to the Flightradar24 network. Space-based ADS-B tracking will be used to supplement our terrestrial receiver network.



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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.

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Flightradar24 is the first flight tracking service which offers space-based ADS-B-tracking. The blue planes on the map are tracked from a satellite and the yellow ones are tracked from the regular earth-based radar stations.

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Red: When an aircraft is displayed as red that means that you are currently following that specific aircraft on the map or that an emergency squawk is on for this aircraft.

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Military aircraft in particular are exempt from many civil rules and regulations which would see most aircraft having an active transponder and of course their operational requirements will dictate they often do. That said, ultimately, any plane CAN disable it if they wish.

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The position is calculated based on many different parameters and in most cases it's quite accurate, but for long flights the position can in worst cases be up to about 100 km (55 miles) off. In settings there is an option to set for how long time you want to see estimated aircraft on map.

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A note about Estimated coverage: when you see a dashed or gray line behind an aircraft, that's estimated coverage. Colored lines indicate actual positions. When an aircraft is out of coverage, we estimate based on great circle routes to destination.

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Arrival and Departure boards list flight status and the On Ground page lists aircraft currently at the airport. All users see the last 60 minutes of on ground activity, Silver subscribers see the past 7 days, Gold subscribers see the last 30 days, and Business subscribers see the last 90 days.

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A Squawk 7700 indicates an emergency. This can be an emergency of any kind. Pilots may input it into the transponder themselves – or when instructed to do so by ATC. As a result, ground control will know that the aircraft is dealing with a serious issue and needs help.

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SQUAWKing is the process of communicating between the air and the ground, the process is essential for keeping planes in the air safe and ensuring a smooth and manageable air traffic control process, both for pilots and air traffic controllers.

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From the time it lifted off from Kuala Lumpur at 15:42 local time, SPAR19 was already the most tracked flight on Flightradar24 among active flights. By the time it landed in Taipei, SPAR19 was being tracked by more than 708,000 people around the world, making it the most tracked live flight in Flightradar24 history.

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Orange: The flight is estimated to be delayed or was delayed.

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The first emergency code that you may have become familiar with is Squawk 7500. This code is used to indicate that the aircraft has been hijacked, and therefore requires urgent emergency support from both security services and air traffic control.

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If the trail is a black dotted line, the aircraft is outside our coverage area and its position is being estimated.

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On the map a coloured line shows the route of the aircraft. Purple colours indicate cruising altitudes. White colours indicate the plane is on the ground. As a plane takes off, the colours change from white, to yellow, to green, to light blue, to dark blue and finally to purple.

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The closest competitor to flightradar24.com are flightstats.com, flightaware.com and airportia.com. To understand more about flightradar24.com and its competitors, sign up for a free account to explore Semrush's Traffic Analytics and Market Explorer tools.

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FlightRadar and similar websites use several sources for aircraft detection, most commonly they use ADS-B. Not all General Aviation aircraft, to which helicopters would count normally, are equipped with transponders that are capable of emitting ADS-B data.

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The Blue Angels don't show up on FR24, but Fat Albert does!

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