What is the blue arrow on flight radar?

Hi Damaris, the blue arrow indicates your direction of view or movement.



On Flightradar24 and similar tracking platforms in 2026, a blue aircraft icon (or arrow) indicates that the flight is currently being tracked via satellite-based ADS-B. Traditionally, aircraft are tracked by ground-based receivers; however, when a plane flies over the middle of the ocean or remote polar regions where no ground stations exist, the signal is picked up by a network of satellites (such as the Iridium constellation). This "Space-based ADS-B" allows for 100% global coverage, ensuring that no aircraft is ever "lost" from the map. Yellow icons, by contrast, represent aircraft tracked by ground-based receivers or other traditional methods. If you see a blue airport icon, this indicates an airport where Flightradar24 has verified real-time data for arrivals and departures. This technology has revolutionized aviation safety and efficiency in 2026, allowing air traffic controllers to safely reduce the separation between aircraft on busy transoceanic routes like the "North Atlantic Tracks."

People Also Ask

Hi Damaris, the blue arrow indicates your direction of view or movement.

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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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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. Over the seven hours from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei, a total of 2.92 million people followed at least a portion of the flight.

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FlightRadar gives detailed information about all flights in the near future and the past while Plane Finder shows flights which have departed and are in the air. You can't see flights in the future. A point for FlightRadar. Plane Finder allows you to set multiple Filters at once, FlightRadar doesn't.

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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 the aircraft's transponder is squawking an emergency code. These codes are 7600 (Communication Equipment Failure), and 7700 (General Emergency).

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What is the longest flight in the world by distance? The longest flight in the world by distance is New York (JFK) to Singapore (SIN) on Singapore Airlines clocking in at 9,537 miles. What plane can fly the farthest in the world?

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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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It appears as BLOCKED due to security and privacy reasons. Aircraft type - (It will only show the 'type code' [LJ35,C750,PA31,etc)] of the aircraft on flightradar24 map. Blocked - Any aircraft without any type codes in the database.

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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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Does FlightRadar show private planes? Yes, it does, but the data is limited. If an operator doesn't want their personal details published, FlightRadar will block out that information or even omit showing the aircraft directly related to high-profile individuals, like Air Force One.

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The Royal Air Force flight carrying Queen Elizabeth II's coffin from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt near London set an all-time flight tracking record on Flightradar24 with 5 million people following along.

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The most tracked flight consists of 4.79 million trackings and was achieved by ZZ177 RAF Boeing C-17A Globemaster III, carrying Queen Elizabeth II's coffin, from Edinburgh, Scotland to London, England on 13 September 2022.

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Popular flight tracking website Flightradar24 has suffered a data breach that possibly compromised the email addresses and hashed passwords of a small subset of customers. Users have received emails requesting them to reset their passwords.

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If you're looking for fighters (fighters are hard to find unless they're trainers), look near the Mach Loop in Wales. If you're looking for tankers, look near the channel and on the east coast.

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This may be old news for some, but I noticed the recent Beta version of Flightradar24 has added 'Drones' to their list of filters.

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According to FlightAware, a flight-tracking software company, the short answer is: a lot. Since planes are constantly landing and taking off, the exact number fluctuates but in 2017, FlightAware calculated there were, on average, 9,729 commercial aeroplanes in the sky at any time.

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