…I took a shot of the midsection when plane was a couple of feet above the tarmac…so no number…
…ok…I set up a 15 minute animation in Flightradar24.com beginning 6:45pm that day and immediately I find the aircraft and grab the number – N795AN…cool!
…ya, but planespotters show the old livery and “my plane” had the new style…ok, could have changed too recently for planespotters – so I check FlightAware to see if this plane visited LAX that day – it did, but FlightAware shows it arriving 11:51am
So there’s no agreeing on this plane – my picture shows American Airlines, new livery, landing 6:52pm (plus/minus some seconds) – Planespotters shows old style and FlightAware shows plane not at LAX at that time…
mduell: “…Are you sure the times are the same timezone?
1852Z is a minute from 11:51a local…”
…well…the discrepancy is then between my camera and flightaware and flightaware has always agreed with my camera times…always…and looking at the coming and going of that plane on that day…it doesn’t make sense…
…or can you “see” that N795AN landed at LAX around 6:52pm…? – …on August 4, 2014…?
There is no ambiguity if I go only by flightradar24 – it’s when I dounblecheck with planespotters and flightaware it falls apart…
…can we make a 7 hour time difference make sense…? – …seems impossible to me…
…I’m trying to research this right now – I discover that I had taken a picture of the equivalent landing event on July 17, 2014 – I got the number of that American Airlines Boeing 777 – N773AN – it was also new style livery and arrived from Shanghai at 6:55pm
(This plane did not fly at all August 4, 2014 according to FlightAware)
…oh mah goodness…unbelievable…!!! – My SECOND attempt – I was going to try the numbers of all 61 American Airlines Boeing 777 to see which one visited LA August 4 and landed around 6:52pm – …was a “hit” – N771AN – according to FlightAware arrived from Shanghai and landed at exactly 6:52pm…! – …how about that…(first number on the list is N770AN…
Now we shall see if Planespotters will show an image of aircraft confirming new style livery…(just a second)…and bingo – a picture, and just one, from June 19, 2014 taken in Japan (Tokyo) shows new style livery…
Mystery Solved (…although…we still don’t understand why Flightradar24 would produce an incorrect number when searching via history animation tool…)
So the lesson here is…Take an extra shot to secure number…!
