Flightradar24 - wrong aircraft displayed

[Marty_d]

Interesting thing happened to me the other day. I was checking out the aviation activity around Hobart on FlightRadar24.  A plane was just starting its takeoff roll at Cambridge, but what grabbed my attention was that its icon was a jet, and they generally use the main airport (Hobart international).

Anyway,  the plane showed as VH-LTZ, Turbine Legend, with the following image:Having never seen that type at Cambridge I watched the track as it took off and climbed to about 1200 ft.  It tracked over to the city, pretty much over the Tasman bridge, then turned south and followed the river.  I was intrigued as the speed never went over 125 kts and that looks like a pretty fast plane. 

Then the speed and altitude started to drop and it made a turning descent.  I got a bit alarmed when the speed went to 70kts and altitude over the river was less than 200 ft.  Then altitude went down to 0 and speed fell to 4 kts!  I was wondering if I'd just witnessed a crash in real time.

However the speed stayed around 5 kts so obviously it was a taxiing seaplane.  I checked the VH register and LTZ is a Textron Aviation 208 with registered operator Tasmanian Seaplanes PTY LTD.

 

So my question is - how does FlightRadar24 get the picture and make/model details of the aircraft?  Was that rego reused for another plane and they still have the original?

Edited October 5, 2023 by Marty_d

[Old Koreelah]

Can’t answer your question Marty, but a similar thing happened to me a few years ago.

I tracked what was identified as a B-737 flying low up the Hunter Valley. I was a bit concerned when this Boeing disappeared from view over farming country south of Tamworth.

 

Seems rego numbers are often transferred to other aircraft, but FR24 may not keep up.

[IBob]

Isn't the aircraft rego set......and adjustable.......in the ADS-B device?

[Thruster88]

This would just be a case of fr24 having a pic of the ledgend which once had the reg LTZ. Picture was taken in Canada where the aircraft may now reside. The cessna 208 was registered LTZ early this year.

 

Plane spotters are everywhere, just Googled the reg on my RV6a and there is a nice pic of it departing old station in 22.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Thruster88

[440032]

Ah, photoshop is a wonderful thing. Look up VH-gullible in the dictionary.

[red750]

Sites like FR24 have a licence to use photos from photo databases like jetphotos.com, airport-data.com, etc., searched electronically. If there are multiple photos wit a certain rego (eg. cancelled and reissued), or the photo has been uploaded with the wrong rego, the automatic search does not pick that up.

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, 440032 said:

Ah, photoshop is a wonderful thing. Look up VH-gullible in the dictionary.

I don't know if it's just me, but the rego letters look very regular - almost as if photoshopped on.  

Which makes sense if, as @Thruster88 says, the aircraft is in Canada. 

[red750]

I have 10 photos on jetphotos.com under my name, not user-id