Last month, we reported how users of the popular flight tracking website Flightradar24 flocked to watch Nancy Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan, as threats from China telling her to stay away made people obviously wonder if they would shoot her down.
It became the site’s most tracked flight ever, but it didn’t take long for that record to be shattered this week. Over 5 million people tracked a Royal Air Force C-17 Globemaster III as it flew Queen Elizabeth II on her final flight, transporting her coffin from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt near London.
Personnel from the Queen’s Colour Squadron, 63 Squadron, Royal Air Force Regiment carried her coffin onto the plane, joined by a Guard of Honor from the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
“Within the first minute of the aircraft’s transponder activating, 6 million people attempted to click on the flight carrying the Queen,” said Flightradar24’s director of communications Ian Petchenik in a blog post. Some 4.79 million people followed the journey, with another 296,000 watching the flight’s path on a YouTube livestream.
“That put unprecedented strain on the Flightradar24 platform, far beyond even what we experienced when the US Speaker of House flew to Taiwan and 2.2 million people followed the flight.”
“In total we processed 76.2 million requests related to this flight alone,” he added. “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.”
Upon arriving at RAF Northolt, the Queen was transported to Buckingham Palace, and then on to Westminster Hall, where she will lie in state for the next 5 days as members of the public are allowed to go in and pay their respects.
The late Queen’s funeral is scheduled for Sep 19.
