At around 11:30 this morning, I saw what looked like a four-engine plane with a white underbelly just outside CMI airport in Champaign, IL. Does anyone know what the plane and carrier were? Maybe I was mistaken, but it looked like it had four engines. Thanks.
Ooooo…I think I know, based on the description…but I’ll wait to see what other say…
/end sarcasm
The reason why i’m asking is that I didn’t get a good view of it, and I wanted to see if anyone knew if what type of plane it was and who the carrier were.
Way to make a new member feel welcome, good job there Timmy! end sarcasm
Timmy, Timmy, Timmy… 
Do diversions show up on Flightaware? Are they searchable by airport diverted to? Thanks.
Yes, in most cases.
Can you remember anything else about the aircraft, no matter how insignificant it may seem?
The aircraft could have been a military aircraft or an aircraft whose tracking is blocked (see FAQ for information on blocked aircraft).
In any case, I couldn’t find any 4 engined aircraft arriving or departing CMI recently. The only airliner I could find other than regional jets as an Allegiant MD83.
I think the side was also white. It was very long, and it came in at about 500- 1000 feet over me. That was all that I picked up on. I know that Delta doesn’t have a 747s, so I’m gonna say I got a bad view and that it might have been their 777. They are the only american carrier that I know of that has a plane that looks like that. All I got was a view out of my window. I tried to go see it about 1.5 hours later and it was gone. The Allegiant plane you see was a casino charter to Laughlin. Do commercial carriers block their flights generally? Thanks.
Generally, no. Of course, there are exceptions but that’s fairly rare.
If I did see a 747, it could have been a NWA military charter, possibly taking troops back from Thanksgiving. It’s a stretch, but its still possible. Other than that, since the flight wasn’t posted, i’m not sure.
Thanks. I didn’t know that there was a plane to Tokyo. Can you please give me a link to it? I tried a search for flights between the two airports and didn’t see anything. Did it stop here as a diversion or were there some other circumstances? I suppose it could have been an E-4B, but there was nobody speaking at the U of I. Thanks again!
Unless for some reason it was blocked, I couldn’t find a Delta charter using a 777 into CMI. I went through all Delta flights from DAL9770 to DAL9999. (9000 series flights are charters, maintenance, and ferry flights for most major USA airlines.) It could have been on the second page of one of the flights and I missed it because I didn’t look beyond the last week.
The flight I saw was at least 3 weeks ago. It’s been a while. But it was CMI to NRT. The weird thing was, I couldn’t find the inbound portion.
I know it is probably too small, but for football and basketball games, you will see Miami Air in CMI with a 738 quite a bit, and some of their aircraft are white, could that have been a 73? It’s the 800 so it is a bit bigger than the others…
I think the Miami Air planes only come in for Football games. I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t Miami Air because it was much too loud for a 737 and it wasn’t on Flightaware, like most previous flights. You don’t happen to know why the Delta 777 was here do you? Also, is the search function always accurate, because I tried a search from here to Nartita and nothing came up. Does it go back very far? Thanks again.
It’s accurate for flights that are currently flying, departing soon, or have recently arrived. It’s not really meant to show all flights on a given route over a long period of time.
So is there anyway on this website or on another website for me to search the Champaign-Narita route and get the info on it from three weeks ago? I don’t have a flight number, just the route. Thanks.
The route search goes back a week.
flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL5 … /KCMI/RJAA
Given the close timing of another flight from Atlanta to Narita and the lack of a track on the flight out of CMI it may have just been a typo or other mistake.
Well, I just expanded my search of all Delta flights in the flight range of 9700 to 9999 (charter flight number range) and didn’t see a single aircraft of Delta at CMI since the beginning of October. You may wish to continue the search going from backwards from DAL9699.
Unless you find something by doing what I just did (enter flight number, press enter, scan listings, repeat), I 'm going to have to say it either wasn’t a Delta aircraft or it was a Delta aircraft but was blocked for some reason.
In any case, I can say for sure it was a MaUFO (maybe a UFO) if it could fly no one has been able to identify it yet. If it couldn’t fly then it wasn’t a flying object.
Thanks for all of your guys’ help. Like the Flightaware staff member says, I’m gonna guess that the flight is a typo, because I have never seen a diversion at Champaign and their was no reason for a flight from here to Tokyo. Are the mistakes due to the FAA’s errors, or are some flights manually entered by Flightaware staff?
They usually result from an error by the person filing the flight plan or ATC. We don’t manually enter flights.