RAF plane carrying Queen’s coffin from Edinburgh airport sets flight-tracking record

The RAF aircraft, carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, takes off from Edinburgh airport. Credit: PA

The plane carrying the late Queen's coffin has broken records to become the most-tracked flight in history, data shows.

Around five million people followed along online as Her Majesty's coffin was flown from Edinburgh Airport to London on Tuesday evening, according to aviation tracker website Flightradar24.

Some 4.79 million people viewed the flight across its website and mobile app services, with a further 296,000 following the journey via a YouTube live stream.

This far exceeds the previous record of 2.2 million people tracking a single flight, achieved last month for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi en-route to her controversial visit to Taiwan.

Flightradar24 said six million people attempted to click on the flight on its website within a minute as the C-17 Globemaster aircraft prepared to take off on Tuesday.

The RAF plane carrying the Queen spent one hour and 12 minutes in flight, landing at London's RAF Northolt before her cortege drove into the centre of the capital.

The aircraft had the callsign “Kittyhawk”, used for any military flight with the Queen on board. The Princess Royal accompanied the coffin on the flight with her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence.Expecting a surge of interest in the flight, Flightradar24 says it implemented a "number of traffic calming measures" to try and ensure stability.

But the "massive spike" in user activity was beyond what the team had anticipated and the website crashed.

"Approximately 600,000 users were able to successfully follow the flight before performance degraded," the website, which became publicly accessible in 2009, said. "As the stability of the site suffered, we implemented additional measures to ensure Flightradar24 remained accessible to as many users as possible and users unable to access the site could continue to follow the flight via live stream."

"Even though our platform suffered under such heavy load, Queen Elizabeth II’s final flight from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt, is by far the all-time most tracked flight on Flightradar24 and will likely remain at the top for a long while."

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The late Queen's coffin is carried to the RAF aircraft at Edinburgh Airport, Scotland. Credit: Andrew Milligan/Pool via AP

The Queen's coffin, which had been Lying at Rest in Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral earlier in the day, arrived at Buckingham Palace to cheering crowds paying tribute late on Tuesday evening.

Her coffin remains at Buckingham Palace ahead of a procession to Westminster Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

King Charles, the Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex, along with the Duke of York, the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex, will form part of the procession later.

Heathrow Airport flights have been cancelled so they do not disturb the procession. The west London airport said in a statement that “out of respect” for the mourning period it will be making “appropriate alterations to our operation”. These include flights being disrupted between 1.50pm and 3.40pm on Wednesday to “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall”.

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