Can someone explain this?

[drew09]

Hey guys, I've been tracking my parents flight from Heathrow to Phoenix and in the past 20 min the plane on Flight Aware disappeared and then it showed its flight path with a sharp turn into New York. Now it's showing the plane back in the air. Can you tell me what the green line means?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW9CG

 

[derg]

Two theories.

First theory is that flightaware isn't all that accurate. There's really no trackinng information publicly available over the ocean so it's, at best, a guesstimation.

Second theory is that they were probably on a, crap, I can't remember the dispatch type, but often times, we'll flight plan from JFK to NCE. Sometimes, depending on fuel, wind, weather, ??X-Factor?? we'll dispatch from JFK to LGW, do a fuel check over LGW and if we've got sufficient fuel for dispatch, we'll "agree" to continue onto NCE as scheduled.

B44? I can't remember.

 

[drew09]

Two theories.

First theory is that flightaware isn't all that accurate. There's really no trackinng information publicly available over the ocean so it's, at best, a guesstimation.

Second theory is that they were probably on a, crap, I can't remember the dispatch type, but often times, we'll flight plan from JFK to NCE. Sometimes, depending on fuel, wind, weather, ??X-Factor?? we'll dispatch from JFK to LGW, do a fuel check over LGW and if we've got sufficient fuel for dispatch, we'll "agree" to continue onto NCE as scheduled.

B44? I can't remember.

Ohhh alright makes sense. Thanks Doug. I saw that sharp turn into New York and..

 

[derg]

That service probably works wonders in the CONUS, but there's no radar over the ocean and the EU forbids flight tracking so I dunno.