The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II left Edinburgh for London on Tuesday.
Andrew Matthews/WPA Pool/Getty Images
Over 5 million people tracked Queen Elizabeth II’s final flight to London, per Flightradar24.
A Royal Air Force flight was carrying the late monarch’s coffin from Edinburgh to London on Tuesday.
For comparison, 700,000 people tracked US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan in August.
Queen Elizabeth II’s final flight to London has become the most-tracked flight ever, with almost 5 million people viewing its flight path, a tracking website said on Wednesday.
The Royal Air Force flight carrying the monarch’s body from Edinburgh to London was watched by 4.79 million, according to Flightradar24. Another 296,000 watched the flight’s path on a YouTube livestream.
The demand was far higher than what the flight tracking service experienced in August, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. At the time, over 700,000 people were watching Pelosi’s flight, per Flightradar24.
The surge in users viewing the queen’s final flight path caused “disruption” to Flightradar24’s platform, the tracking service tweeted.
“Prior to the flight’s departure, we implemented a number of traffic calming measures to provide our platform with as much stability as possible,” said Flightradar24 on its blog. “Based on our experience last month, we expected a large influx of users, but this immediate, massive spike was beyond what we had anticipated.”
Queen Elizabeth II died aged 96 at her residence in Balmoral, Scotland, on Thursday. The queen’s funeral is scheduled for next Monday.