Originally Posted by
HEATHROW DIRECTOR
Forget it Dave. I trust Gonzo far more than all the on-line "radar".
I do, too.
The strange thing is that we're not talking here about FR24-type "radar" (i.e. crowd-sourced ADS-B), with all its limitations. Instead, it's the official Heathrow Airport flight monitoring website powered by data from NATS radars.
Heathrow tells us:
The flight data for Webtrak is taken directly from the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) radar that is used to direct aircraft at Heathrow. The accuracy of the system has been verified by the Civil Aviation Authority and by independent Dutch company NLR.
See
Heathrow - track flights on maps
Notwithstanding the above endorsement, it's certainly not unknown for WebTrak to miss flights completely (a BA DUB departure and a UA EWR arrival in recent weeks, for example), but I can't remember any previous occasion where an entirely fictitious flight has been shown, as in this case.
Hence my professional curiosity as to what might have caused it.
