Incorrect FlightId?

[Jez]

Here's an interesting one....

I noticed a BA 767 on approach in to Birmingham this evening. RadarBox was showing the Flight number as BAW67, Heathrow to Philadelphia.

I was a little confused as to why a US bound flight would descending towards BHX, so I tuned into BHX approach and heard a SpeedBird 677.

Apparently Heathrow has had some problems this evening and few flights have diverted including BA677 from Instanbul.

I guess the crew must have entered the flight details incorrectly entering BAW67 instead of BAW677.

Anyone ever seen this sort of thing before?

[Jez]

Screen shot of the offending flight.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[AirNav Support]

It is known that some B763 as well as other jets have an issue where by there Flight ID changes from BAW677 to BAW67. This might be the same issue.

[Deadcalm]

Airnav, that's a bit of a confusing, catch-all answer - can you be more specific?

Are you saying that this affects potentially any aircraft, or just B763s, or just BAW flights using B763s or possibly any other aircraft, or just that particular callsign?  And do you know why -is it a software issue with Radarbox, or a hardware issue with whichever aircraft it is?

DC

[tarbat]

DC, this problem of aircraft cycling through 2 (or more) callsigns during a flight is a know problem with the systems in the aircraft itself.  There's long discussions about this over on Kinetic's forum at:
http://www.kinetic-avionics.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4242
http://www.kinetic-avionics.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3120

I've observed similar changes on:
- VIR19 switching to VIR19 1, and VIR1IR1
- VIR43 switching to VIR IR4, VIR 3 4, VIR43 4, and VIR4IR4
- KLM601 switching to KLM LM6, and KLM6LM6
- KLM685 switching to BM6LM6, GM LM6, KLM LM6 and RM LM6

Found this official statement about B747 problems:
Changing Flight Identification – B747: The call-sign or flight identification on some Boeing 747s has been observed to change randomly during flight. The problem has been isolated to the ACSS transponder. A service bulletin is expected by the end of March 2007 to address the problem.  The flight identification is the primary means of coupling the ADS-B track to the ATC flight plan within the air traffic management system. A change in flight identification would cause a decoupling, resulting in problems for the controller. This problem also has implications for the European Mode S radar program and will need to be resolved for airlines to gain compliance.

[AirNav Support]

Exactly as Tarbat has mentioned, we cannot be more specfic as we don't know the exact issues the aircrafts are having but we have seen 747s and 767s exhbit this behaviour.

It is an issue for the aircraft not RadarBox.

[Jez]

Interesting info!.... thanks for the feedback guys.

[tommyg]

The issue with the BA B767's is caused by the FMS installed on these acft, it drops the last digit of the flight number It is a known problem that hasnt been resolved. It only affects this fleet in BA.