Registration 80-1071
Alt 21500' (+0 fpm)
Flight no
Recd. at 140430 192707
ICAO id AE0954
Type U2
Looks like this could have been the chap.
He maxed out at 22,800 feet at around 1920 GMT loitered there for a short time then RTB...whole flight was just over an hour.
No climb to "above" FL600 as far as I can see.
The altitude reports during the flight were consistant with a gradual climb to 22,800 then gradual descent....so that rules out the problem with the computer system being unable to handle anything above FL600
The regs of U2s are not reliable in Mode S as the boxes seem to be rotated
Were ATC expecting a climb to 60K and got confused when it didnt
climb that high , or was the flight curtailed when the confusion broke out ?
A Federal Aviation Administration computer system interpreted the U-2′s flight path at a very high altitude as if it were flying in a much lower and more crowded airspace
Hmmmm ..... Its Mode S must have been very wrong.
Of course the data I have might be a totally separate flight , but it does seem to fit the profile.