Popular flight tracker strains under interest in Pelosi’s flight

Popular flight tracker strains under interest in Pelosi’s flight


The popular flight tracking service Flightradar24 is straining to keep up with public interest in the aircraft said to be carrying US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi on her Asia tour.

“Because of unprecedented sustained tracking interest in SPAR19, Flightradar24 services are under extremely heavy load.

“Some users may currently experience issues accessing the site, our teams are working on restoring full functionality to all users as quickly as possible,” it said in a statement posted on its official Twitter account tonight.

This comes as Pelosi (above) is speculated to make a controversial visit to Taiwan tonight, but US officials have kept mum on the matter.

SPAR19 is the flight number of one of two US Air Force aircraft that carried Pelosi and her entourage to Malaysia earlier today. According to various flight tracking services, the other aircraft, SPAR20, has yet to leave Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang, Selangor.

Earlier today, Reuters reported that SPAR19 is the most followed flight of the day on Flightradar24. By 7.30pm, 300,000 people were tracking the flight through the service.

However, it said it could not establish whether Pelosi is aboard the aircraft.

Local media in Taiwan, meanwhile, claimed Pelosi was expected to arrive at 10.20pm tonight via a private aircraft.

As of writing at 10.25pm, Flightradar24 shows SPAR19 is flying just east of Taiwan after taking a circuitous route to get there.

It had taken off from Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport at 3.42pm, but instead of heading northeast across the South China Sea for a direct route to Taiwan, the Boeing C-40C jet headed east for Indonesian airspace.

It then turned north near Sulawesi, before turning northwards to fly along the Philippine’s eastern border towards Taiwan.