About FlightGlobe
Live aircraft tracking by airport, route, airline and aircraft type.
What this is
A live flight tracker shows where aircraft are right now — their position, altitude, speed and identity — drawn as moving dots on a map. Almost all of it comes from one technology: ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast), in which each aircraft works out its own position from GPS and broadcasts it on the 1090 MHz radio frequency, several times a second, for anyone with a receiver to hear.
FlightGlobe assembles these broadcasts primarily from the OpenSky Network, with a best-effort ADSB.lol fallback for aircraft tagged as military-registered. For every aircraft it shows a “state vector” — position, altitude, ground speed (in m/s), heading and climb or descent — alongside its callsign and identity. Because the data is broadcast rather than commanded, the map is a window onto the airspace, not a control panel: it reflects what aircraft are saying about themselves.
Learn the basics
All articles →- 📡 How live flight tracking worksADS-B, the 1090 MHz broadcast, ground receivers and the state vector — the chain that turns a GPS fix in the cockpit into a dot on the map.
- ✈️ Reading a single flightCallsign vs. ICAO address vs. registration, altitude and flight levels, ground speed, and the squawk codes that flag an emergency.
- 🗼 Aircraft, airspace and air-traffic controlWhat controllers do, how airspace is layered and divided, and how the structure you can’t see explains the patterns you can.
- 🌫️ Why flights disappear or look wrongCoverage gaps over oceans and remote areas, filtered or blocked aircraft, and data lag — the limits behind a missing or jumpy track.
Reading the data responsibly
Flight tracking is a window onto public broadcasts, not an official record. These notes are about reading it honestly and knowing its limits — not about operating, controlling or making safety decisions for any flight.
Know what the map can’t see
- A blank patch of sky usually means no receiver is in range — common over oceans and remote areas — not that no aircraft are there.
- Some military, government and sensitive flights don’t broadcast standard ADS-B or are withheld from public feeds, so the picture is never complete.
Treat anomalies with care
- A position can lag, jump or freeze because of data delay, a momentary GPS error or a stale update — the next good broadcast usually corrects it.
- An emergency squawk or an unusual track may be a transponder slip or a routine event; don’t infer an incident from a single odd reading.
Use it for what it’s good at
- Great for understanding where flights are, how airspace flows and why routes curve — context and curiosity, not surveillance of individuals.
- For authoritative status, delays or incidents, rely on the airline, airport or aviation authority — not a community-sourced tracker.
Data sources
- OpenSky Network — A non-profit research network that aggregates ADS-B and transponder data from thousands of community-run ground receivers worldwide.
- ADSB.lol (ODbL 1.0) — Contains information from ADSB.lol, made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. Its key-free feed supplies a best-effort fallback of aircraft tagged as military-registered.
- ICAO — The UN aviation body whose standards define transponder addressing, emergency squawk codes and the conventions behind ADS-B identity and altitude.
Frequently asked
- How does a flight tracker know where planes are?
- Aircraft fix their own position with GPS and broadcast it on 1090 MHz using ADS-B, several times a second. Community receiver networks — primarily OpenSky here, with an ADSB.lol military-registered fallback — hear those broadcasts and the tracker plots them. It listens to what aircraft transmit; it does not control or interrogate them.
- Why has a flight disappeared from the map?
- Almost always a coverage gap: ADS-B needs a ground receiver in range, and over oceans and remote areas there may be none, so an aircraft drops off and reappears later. Some aircraft are also filtered or blocked from public feeds, or a position simply hasn’t updated yet.
- What’s the difference between a callsign and a registration?
- The callsign is what the flight goes by on the radio (often an airline code plus number) and belongs to the flight, so it can change trip to trip. The registration is the tail number painted on the airframe and stays with the aircraft, as does its unique ICAO 24-bit transponder address.
- What do squawk codes 7500, 7600 and 7700 mean?
- They are the three worldwide emergency transponder codes: 7500 signals unlawful interference (hijack), 7600 a radio-communication failure, and 7700 a general emergency. They can also be set by mistake and corrected quickly, so treat one as a reason to look closer, not a confirmed event.
- Why does the speed look so high — what unit is it?
- FlightGlobe reports ground speed in metres per second (m/s) — how fast the aircraft moves over the earth. It’s affected by wind, so a tailwind can push it above the aircraft’s speed through the air, and a headwind below. Multiply by about 3.6 for km/h.
⚠️ Important
FlightGlobe is an informational service built on public ADS-B broadcasts via the OpenSky Network and ADSB.lol, not an official air-traffic or safety system. ADSB.lol's fallback covers aircraft tagged as military-registered, not every military or government flight. Positions can be delayed, missing or filtered, and some aircraft are not shown at all. Never rely on it for operational, navigational or emergency decisions.