FedEx 3719 MHT-BOS on July 26? (A300)

Aviation Airlines
1

Every weekday evening, a FedEx A300 runs from Indianapolis to Manchester (NH) and then, after an hour or so on the ground there, flies 50 miles down to Boston. The flight–#3719–is quick and the route is predictable.

Except, according to FlightAware, for tonight.

I looked at the map and saw that this plane–instead of heading south to Boston, zoomed up to Maine to around Portland before looping around to come back south to Boston. I clicked the flight log which lists the altitudes and coordinates for every minute of the flight. You can cut-and-paste any of these coordinates into Google map to get a pinpoint definition of where the plane was at that moment, and its altitude. Sure enough, the cut-and-paste coordinates did in fact show the plane going up into Maine. Then, at one point, the plane was just about at the intersection of the Maine Turnpike and Portland Jetport…at an altitude of 300 feet! You can see all this yourself by checking FedEx Flight 3719–the MHT-BOS leg–for Thursday, July 26.

Now, I’m not gullible enough to believe that Flight 3719 actually did this as depicted by FlightAware, so what’s a plausible explanation?

Thanks,

Chris in NH

2

Looks like it was two different flights (likely by two different aircraft), and ATC either used the wrong flight number for one, or forgot to send an arrival/departure for one.

First you have the flight up in Maine from 1831 to 1844 (which landed, thus the descent to 300 ft), then a different flight from MHT to BOS starting at 1852ish (climbing through 2200 ft at 1853). The long straight line is just to connect the 1844 and 1853 positions.