flightaware.com/live/flight/PTWBC
Whats is this doing here?
PT- prefix is Brazil, Flightaware got it wrong. Owner is Companhia Cervejaria Brahma according to rzjets.net.
North Korea’s registrations begin with P. As mentioned by Pat206, PT is a Brazilian registration (along with PP, PR, and PU).
The actual allocation to DPRK (N.Korea) per the ITU/ICAO list is P5- thru P9- however the aircraft are painted as P-nnn where nnn is between 500 and 999.
One of 5 countries which (presumably) have special dispensation to ignore the ‘rules’:
Canada - CF,CG,CH,CI,CJ and CK - displayed as C-xxxx
Zimbabwe - Z2 - displayed as Z-Wxx and Z-Yxx
N.Korea (above)
USA N- but the dash is omitted
Japan JA- but the dash is omitted.
Most countries have additional allocations which in theory could be used for registrations as happened recently in the UK where the M-xxxx was added to the G-xxxx series.
The M prefix is for the Isle of Man, which is NOT part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is entitled to a separate prefix.
From Wikipedia:
Under British law, the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom. However, the UK takes care of its external and defence affairs, and retains paramount power to legislate for the island. There are no independent military forces on the Isle of Man although the HMS Ramsey is affiliated with the town of the same name. From 1938 there was a (now disbanded) Manx Regiment of the British Territorial Army, which saw extensive action during the Second World War. There is an independent Isle of Man police force, which is controlled directly by the Isle of Man Government, but which nonetheless voluntarily submits to inspection by the UK inspectorate of police.
Speaking of registrations: What I find interesting is Panama’s system of registration. The prefix is HP-9999xxx where 9999 is a four digit number and XXX are letters. There can be one, two, or three letters. In many cases airlines use their airline code as the three letters (e.g. HP-1369CMP is a 737-700 of COPA (CMP)).
But it didn’ get one: M United Kingdom (and its overseas territories/Crown dependencies)
Guess nobody likes the Isle of Man. The world thinks its part of the UK and the UK says it isn’t. I found this footnote in the Wikipedia entry on ICAO codes:
ITU code ‘M’ is registered to the United Kingdom. The Isle of Man is not a sovereign entity in international law.
As I understand it the Isle of Mann has it’s own tax laws and is treated as an offshore territory much like the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Bermuda etc.
This will be fixed tomorrow at 5pm Eastern.