

Flight #LH501 from Rio to Frankfurt made a U-turn and is flying back after 2h - metafnord
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/450500052478218240

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lutusp
This story makes me realize something -- online commercial flight trackers
provide a way to detect a flight diversion as soon as radar detects it and
possibly before ATC realizes it.

All one would need is an algorithm that uses online resources to track all
ongoing flights from any point A to point B. If a flight diverts more than a
reasonable amount from a great circle route from one point to another, that
should trigger an alarm and extra watchfulness, even though such things
sometimes happen for ordinary reasons like a passenger falling ill or an
aircraft malfunction.

It's another example of the untapped possibilities of Big Data.

