Dicfoure

The "normal" flight path for UA835 usually goes from Chicago to China via an east to west route. Is today's UA 835 going west to east instead of east to west because of the threat of a North Korean missile test? Or is there another explanation?

JeffS

AA289 is flying a similar route.

kale73

I don't know. But given the "accuracy" of North Korean missile tests, the safest route is probably along the "planned" flight path of the missile.

FlyWorld

If I click on your FlightAware link and then I click on an earlier flight, as far back as 27 Nov, I see that all such flights make a huge detour around North Korea. Based on that observation, it seems like this might be the typical flight path, no?

ExpatSomchai

LOL ^^^^

star_world

That's not true at all - quite the opposite in fact, all the ones I checked go right through the middle of North Korea. Using 27 Nov as an example:



The flight plan does seem to be skewed in that region but it's hard to decipher if that's a FlightAware issue or otherwise.

LaserSailor

...make sure you get credit for miles flown in fare class PRK

FlyWorld

So, on that particular day, there is a blue dashed line that clearly shows avoidance of North Korea, but then there is a green line that goes straight through North Korea. Does that mean UA filed a flight plan to avoid North Korea then they ignored the flight plan and, instead, flew straight through the middle of DPRK airspace?

If you look at Dec 3, the results are even more strange. On Dec 3, I see the green line mapping the blue line all the way through the northern area of Chinese airspace, and then, the green line simply stops.

I'm not sure how to interpret this data. But, the blue line shows consistent avoidance of DPRK airspace, and this holds true across dates. The behavior of the green line across dates is less consistent.

Is it possible that FlightAware might not have the ability to actually track the jet through that region?

if1km

http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publi...0_NK_NOTAM.pdf

Dicfoure

HA!!!

Excellent, thank you!

mduell

Or it could be the wind favorable route today.

You'd have to check the track log to see if there's actually any positions over North Korea. It could just be connecting a straight line between known positions in the US and China.

Karlson

I would be scared to death if I fly in region where the missile tests are taking place.

qvzn

Indeed, even in the small pic posted here, the line looks too straight to be the actual flightpath. The bigger map on flightaware is even clearer about that. We've all seen the moving map onboard--do the route lines EVER look that perfect? I think it's far more probable that they flew something closer to the filed plan (the dotted blue line), or something completely different to avoid overflying the DPRK

WineCountryUA

a bit unfounded considering the difficulty of surface to air missiles had of successfully hit a target until heat seeking technology was developed. 3-dimensional airspace is big and very hard for a collision to occur (those tend to occur in controlled air corridors in congested areas -- near airports)

Karlson

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siber...es_Flight_1812

Pretty sure N.Koreans use same old technology as Ukraine