Originally Posted by
barry lloyd
In one airport where I worked, we had FR 24 on a large screen in the ops room, basically in order to know in what sequence the flights were arriving. On several occasions, the registrations of the aircraft turned out to be different from those on the screen. Invariably, the departure signal had posted the correct registration and flight number, but it did lead to confusion, not something you need when the LCCs have minimum turnaround times.
As you're no doubt aware, commercial aircraft rarely transmit their registrations via Mode S or ADS-B, so sources such as FR24 rely on deducing the identity of the aircraft on the screen from their transmitted ICAO 24-bit address using proprietary and/or public domain tie-up databases.
On the handful of occasions that I've seen FR24 or other flight trackers display an incorrect identity, it has mostly been due to the aircraft in question transmitting the wrong 24-bit address due to either a technical fault or being wrongly configured.
It's happened to me maybe half a dozen times over the last 10 years or so - not a bad average!