autoevolution
 

Queen Elizabeth's Final Flight Sets All-Time Flight Tracking Record

Over five million people tracked the plane that carried Queen Elizabeth's casket from Edinburgh to London. The great number of people accessing the website to check on the Boeing C-17A Globemaster military jet affected the stability of the platform, but established an all-time flight tracking record.
Royal Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III 6 photos
Photo: Royal Air Force
FlightRadar24's Servers During Queen Elizabeth's Final FlightQueen Elizabeth's Final FlightQueen Elizabeth's Final FlightRoyal Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIRoyal Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth passed away on September 8 at her home at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, at 96 years old. Subsequently, her eldest son, formerly known as Charles, Prince of Wales, became King. Meanwhile, her body had to be brought back to London for the upcoming funeral on September 19.

Her last journey included a Mercedes-Benz and a Jaguar hearse, plus a flight in a Royal Air Force plane. Her final flight set an all-time flight tracking record on Flightradar24, with five million people following along on the web, apps, and YouTube live stream. Out of the five million, 4.79 million of them were via the web and the app, with the other 296,000 via the live stream, the Swedish live airplane-tracking service officially reported.

Flightradar24 anticipated the flight would be tremendously popular. The team worked to provide as much website stability as possible, but the massive traffic proved a technical challenge.

"This immediate, massive spike was beyond what we had anticipated," the official blog post writes. "In total we processed 76.2 million requests related to this flight alone -- that's any action by a user, like clicking on the flight icon, clicking on the aircraft information in the left side box, or adjusting settings."

Her Majesty's final flight was in a Boeing C-17A Globemaster III jet, covering a distance of 327 km (527 km) in one hour and 12 minutes, landing at RAF Northolt at 6:54 PM, after a departure delay of 22 minutes.

The Boeing C-17A Globemaster is a large military transport aircraft. It usually flies with three crew members, two pilots and one loadmaster. It has a capacity of 170,900 lb (77,519 kg) of cargo, with a length of 174 ft (53 m). It's powered by four Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan engines, taking it to a cruise speed of 450 knots (520 mph / 830 kph), with a range of 2,420 nautical miles (2,780 mi / 4,480 km).

Before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's final flight, her heir, King Charles III, opted for an Embraer Legacy 600 jet on his way to Belfast, Northern Ireland on official business. Needless to say, he didn’t have five million people following his jet online.

The previous flight-tracking record was set last month, by the plane that took Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, Taiwan. Back then, 2.92 people had their eyes on the Boeing C-40C.

If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)

Editor's note: Gallery showing official pictures of the RAF C-17

About the author: Monica Coman
Monica Coman profile photo

Imagine a Wenn diagram for cars and celebrities. At the intersection you'll find Monica, putting her passion for these fields and English-Spanish double major to work. She's been doing for the past seven years, most recently at autoevolution.
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories