LONDON ENGLAND – Queen Elizabeth II’s final flight to London has become the most-tracked flight ever, with almost 5 million people viewing its flight path, a tracking website said earlier this week.
The Royal Air Force flight carrying the monarch’s body from Edinburgh to London was watched by 4.79 million, according to Flightradar24. Another 296,000 watched the flight’s path on a YouTube livestream.
The demand was far higher than what the flight tracking service experienced in August, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. At the time, over 700,000 people were watching Pelosi’s flight, per Flightradar24.
The surge in users viewing the queen’s final flight path caused “disruption” to Flightradar24’s platform, the tracking service tweeted.
“Prior to the flight’s departure, we implemented a number of traffic calming measures to provide our platform with as much stability as possible,” said Flightradar24 on its blog. “Based on our experience last month, we expected a large influx of users, but this immediate, massive spike was beyond what we had anticipated.”
Queen Elizabeth II died aged 96 at her residence in Balmoral, Scotland, late this week. The queen’s funeral is scheduled for next week.
This was expected as the beloved monarch made her last journey through the kingdom. The airports have made the needed changes in security and crowd control to make sure she gets to her final resting place in peace.
People from all over the world will be watching the late queen as she makes her way to London where everyone will be able to say their final good byes to her and she will be laid to rest with her beloved husband.
