Interseting American Flight

[cessnapilot06]

I know that it is just a glich in the system, but I thought that this American Airlines flight track looks really cool.

flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL555

It is the one that goes from DFW to STL on April 12, 2007

[NeedleNose]

It’s been quite some time since this subject has been discussed, but it used to come up like two or three times a week about six months ago. This is an anomaly caused by two planes with the same flight number being tracked at the same time.

[cessnapilot06]

I know why it happens. I just thought it looked cool.

[tobyz1]

I know why it happens too. You can see it in the flight log with sets of widely separated locations for the same time.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL555/history/20070412/2215Z/KSTL/KDFW/tracklog

AAL wouldn’t have two flight 555s, but there probably was an AAL555 ( = any digit) which the traffic controllers entered as AAL555.

[planeaholic]

@tobyz1

AAL wouldn’t have two flight 555s, but there probably was an AAL555 ( = any digit) which the traffic controllers entered as AAL555.

Would it be possible for a controller to enter “AAL” instead of “EGF” (American Eagle; “Eagle Flight”) either by mistake or by laziness? They ARE owned by the same company, so it wouldn’t seem to matter much as far as landing fees, etc. are concerned (other than for tracking confusion, of course!).

[damiross]

@planeaholic

@tobyz1

AAL wouldn’t have two flight 555s, but there probably was an AAL555 ( = any digit) which the traffic controllers entered as AAL555.

Would it be possible for a controller to enter “AAL” instead of “EGF” (American Eagle; “Eagle Flight”) either by mistake or by laziness? They ARE owned by the same company, so it wouldn’t seem to matter much as far as landing fees, etc. are concerned (other than for tracking confusion, of course!).

The FAA doesn’t care about landing fees, etc. The aircraft operator is assigned the call sign by the FAA. An American Eagle flight cannot use an American Airlines call sign.

It’s possible for a controller to be looking dead on at, say, an American Airlines aircraft, and half to call it, say, Delta because it is Delta operating the aircraft and not American. (This is only an example made up by my mind. But, hopefully, you get the gist of what I’m talking about.)

[TUSpilot]

@tobyz1

I know why it happens too. You can see it in the flight log with sets of widely separated locations for the same time.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL555/history/20070412/2215Z/KSTL/KDFW/tracklog

AAL wouldn’t have two flight 555s, but there probably was an AAL555 ( = any digit) which the traffic controllers entered as AAL555.

Actually they would. AAL555 is a continuing flight operating LGA-STL-DFW. On April 12, the LGA-STL flight left quite late compared to previous days. AA obviously did not want the STL-DFW leg to be delayed, so they got a new aircraft and used it for STL-DFW. This results in only one flight being late. There were actually two flights in the air operating as AAL555. Airlines do this quite often on continuing flights when the first is delayed and they will never cross paths and controller confusion is not a problem.

[tobyz1]

[quote=“TUSpilot”]

@tobyz1

I know why it happens too. You can see it in the flight log with sets of widely separated locations for the same time.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL555/history/20070412/2215Z/KSTL/KDFW/tracklog[/quote]

AAL wouldn’t have two flight 555s, but there probably was an AAL555 ( = any digit) which the traffic controllers entered as AAL555.

Actually they would. AAL555 is a continuing flight operating LGA-STL-DFW. On April 12, the LGA-STL flight left quite late compared to previous days. AA obviously did not want the STL-DFW leg to be delayed, so they got a new aircraft and used it for STL-DFW. This results in only one flight being late. There were actually two flights in the air operating as AAL555. Airlines do this quite often on continuing flights when the first is delayed and they will never cross paths and controller confusion is not a problem.

Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense to me.