A U.S. Global Hawk UAV might have popped up on Flightradar24

March 29, 2016 Drones, Military Aviation, North Korea, Troubled Areas
David Cenciotti
A screenshot showing the Global Hawk tracking over South Korea. (Image credit: FR24.com via @CivMilAir)

As North Korea conducted one of the largest-ever military drill a Global Hawk UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) could be tracked online.

On Mar. 26, at around 12.00AM GMT, a weird aircraft could be tracked online on the popular website Flightradar24.com.

The aircraft was not broadcasting its flight data using its ADS-B transponder, but could be tracked thanks to Multilateration (MLAT).

Interestingly, the aircraft was flying at 57K feet a bit too high for a conventional manned plane, but a standard operating altitude for a high-altitude ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) platform as the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk.

Noteworthy, the callsign showed by the aircraft was UAVGH (UAV – Global Hawk?).

 

Although the ID of the aircraft can’t be verified, we can’t but notice that the mysterious aircraft appeared in the same hours North Korea conducted its largest ever drills, with hundreds of M-1978 Koksan 170 mm self-propelled guns & MLRS.

Just a coincidence?



About David Cenciotti
WebsiteFacebookTwitterLinkedIn instagram
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

Related Articles

2 Comments

  1. Please don’t turn your website into one that you have to download an app to get the rest of the article. I enjoy being able to just pop in and read an article on my computer, rather than having to go on my phone for the app.

  2. That map of the Korean peninsula makes it look like the DPRK is more developed than the ROK.
    It is weird. Shanghai area and DPRK are showing the main highways, while ROK and the piece of Japan you can see look like rural communities…
    Is it a commie map?

Comments are closed.