Bogus tracks GL7T D-AGLO 3C5D8F

Plane Spotting
1

Hello all,

Yesterday (29-01-2025) adsb-exchange showed D-AGLO landing at 21:35z at AMS from LGW. Tracks look very normal but the real aircraft is nowhere to be found. The aircraft is not known in the airport’s systems. On a replay it landed in between A20N OE-LSN and B38M PH-TFN . My own SBS-3 logged both airliners but not the GL7T… On liveATC both airliners can be heard getting their landing clearance on 118.28 but no aircraft in between.
Today the GL7T still pings in a hangar at Schiphol-east, while at a competing website it is flying LBG-CIA… Also FR24 shows an anonymous GL7T on that flight.

My own SBS logged this aircraft once at AMS this year, 21-08-2024, also using VDL-2, landing 0713z rwy27 and departing 1137z rwy22. On the Scramble forum it was announced before landing as it was entered in the airport’s systems.
On adsb-exchange however, it flew HAJ-MAD-HAJ that day!

Assuming the picture’s date here is correct, here another mismatch, at LTN on 08-09-2024:

On adsb-exchange it flew BRU-BCN-AMS (I doubt that).

And at DMK 20-11-2024 :
Imgur

So it shows up on adsb-exchange were there is no real aircraft , and were the real aircraft is there is nothing on adsb-exchange (no other hexcode either) .

Any ideas what is going on? It is almost like someone is sending out fake data to hide its flights.

L10H

2

Another interesting one; On the replay of AMS 21-07-204 at 18:01 D-AGLO can be seen taking off 36L into several landing aircraft on 18R !

(the date in the URL jumps back one day on my system. Make sure it is set at 2024-07-21. I have to change it to 22 to get 21.)

And this one:

It landed on rwy24 at 20:41, and took of from rwy22 20:45 . It cannot have rolled out, taxied to 22 and prepare for departure in 4 minutes…

3

While it’s possible someone could submit fake data to the site, it would be impossible for them to also block the real data.

@demetrio maybe you can have someone glance at the backend data?

4

Here a possible case of blocked data, AMS 21-08-2024:

20240821_0711z

I had to reconstruct the arrivals of my SBS-3 from a compressed log. TGZ651 did not transmit a position so is only visible in the list on the right. D-AGLO was perfectly visible…but is completely missing on ADSB-exchange!

I’ve also had a report of someone seen it land at LBG at 21-07-2024 ~2015lt without any trace on ADSB-exchange.

5

These two flights look a bit too similar:
2024-07-21 AMS-FLR PH-EXY KLM63V/1651

6

thank you. is there other detail from the other posts (hidden to me) regarding where these bogus tracks appeared and for what day? If I check the history on this reg#, the last flight track was Jan 29 ADS-B Exchange - track aircraft live

7

Hi,

I tried posting a couple of flights but with max 2 urls per post I made 3 quick consecutive posts which is probably why now all my posts are flagged as spam.

So without urls:
First I posted a screenshot of my SBS showing D-AGLO landing at AMS 2024-08-21 0711z, ahead of PH-EZX, and a screenshot of a replay of ADSB-exchange where it was missing.

Then I found a couple of flights were D-AGLO flew an almost exact copy of a flight of an airliner a few hours earlier on the same day:
Have a look at D-AGLO 's flight on 2025-01-29 LGW-AMS, it seems an exact copy of A320 G-EJCE EZY45XC/6371 hex 407E61 .

And before that, 2025-01-29 BCN-LGW looks like OE-LKK EJU8062 hex 44061B

Further back, 2024-07-21 AMS-FLR flew exactly like PH-EXY KLM63V/1651 hex 485875. That day I logged the aircraft at LTN and I have reports of people seen it land at LBG in the evening without it being visible on ADSB-exchange.

Hard to believe but it seems the aircraft’s real flights are blocked and are replaced by copying flights of other aircraft. Flighttime, speeds and groundtracks are not the same but the airborne path is!

9

thank you for all the detail. I have asked the engineers to take a look.

10

Thank you. I had another look at both LGW-AMS flights of 2025-01-29. The data-points are not the same but both aircraft need exactly 9m43s to reach top-of-climb at FL230 north of Maldon from the end of the runway. Speeds transmitted by D-AGLO are about 40% higher though…it must have made a Concorde-like take-off at 200+ kt halfway the runway, going faster and faster at low altitude, reaching 390kt at FL100. (ok groundspeed, but until here max 250kt indicated is allowed).

Own data of D-AGLO’s visit of AMS 2024-08-21, and the last GL7T departure at AMS (OE-LSS at 2025-01-31) show more modest, A320-like speeds.
Weight, wind and acceleration-procedures will cause varying figures but those LGW-speeds are unrealistic, and can not lead to the same vertical profile in time as the A320.

11

Another one; On 2025-02-04 the ghost-D-AGLO can be seen leaving AMS for BCN.

In the replay D-AGLO takes off at 06:11z in between AUA3NA(OELBK) and LOT7LA(SP-LII) with only a runway-length seperation…way too little.

On LiveAtc again both airliners can be heard getting their take-off clearance but D-AGLO/KAY58 is missing. The archived file should be avialable for the next week or so (listen between minute 09 and 12).

On adsb lol it can be seen flying LBG-MUC around that time!

The flight to BCN seems a copy of leg 1 of PH -BXO (hex 48418A) two days earlier.

L10H

12

Two questions for the engineers; Would it be possible to feed a whole virtual flight through one feeder outside its theoretical range? And would a virtual flight starting before, and probably landing after the real flight obscure that? If e.g. your software rejects data far away from an aircraft that is already live? The real flight on 2025-02-04 LBG-MUC ~0625-0725z fits within the fake AMS-BCN flight ~0611-0757.

Addition: The virtual aircraft “flew” a few days later to MUC, on 2025-02-08, showing BCN-MUC with a flightpath that seems copied from DLH96C, A321 D-AISB 3C6664 a day earlier. Its cruise level FL336 doesn’t make sense either.

13

On 2025-2-11 D-AGLO flew MUC-BTS, both visible on adsb-exchange and adsb.lol … audio of Bratislava on liveATC confirms its arrival so since a long time this seems like a flight that is normally visible on adsbEx. 2025-2-13 shows a flight from BTS to the Caribbean or south-America. My own SBS picked up this flight so thisi seems to be correct data as well.

14

The fake-flights keep going. On 01/03/2025 and 04/03/2025 D-AGLO flew LBG-CMF-LBG return-flights, with the fake-aircraft on ADSBex jumping around at LGW. I am convinced fake data is transmitted to ADSBex everytime the real aircraft flies, suppressing its real track.

The data seems correct on adsb . lol and FR24 (anonymous GL7T though).

Besides this, fake flights are injected when the real aircraft is parked…I guess to fool activists, journalists, business analysts etc.

The fake D-AGLO flew LGW-ALG yesterday, 05-03-2025, using the path of A321 G-EUXG (hex 400aff) earlier that day.

Interestingly, ADSBex reception around ALG at low altitude is not good. G-EUXG was lost below 7700ft and the same can be seen with current live traffic. D-AGLO 's track however ends exactly where the FR24-track of G-EUXG stops, a few turns after vacating the runway.
Just speculating, but pressing KML or CMV in the FR24-flighthistory gives a good bit of data to feed a little program on that could feed interpolated fake data to ADSBex.

15

Sending fake data would not surprise the real track, it would cause the plane to constantly jump between the real and fake locations.

16

OK, so that doesn’t explain the missing flights.

Can you see if the flight from LGW-ALG is coming from only one feeder?
(hex 3c5d8f 2025-03-05 , I cannot post links here )

I believe this is a fake flight. A lot of data is missing in the left-hand fields of the webpage, like FMS SEL, WIND, SPEED (except ground speed), many DIRECTION fields, etc. This data is available on what I believe is the real flight it was copied from (hex 400aff 2025-03-05 leg 1) .

…and eg. also on a recent real flight the aircraft made 11-2-2025 from MUC to BTS
(hex 3c5d8f 2025-02-11)

17

The fake aircraft is ‘flying’ now from Algiers to the north. It is currently near Luxembourg. I think the flighttrack is a copy of TUI Belgium B38M OO-TMB, flight TB3465 of 03/03/2025. If so it should ‘land’ in <30m at BRU runway 25L. Say 10:30lt.
Under SIGNAL number of receivers jumps up to ~8…I had expected 1 to be honest.

18

hello. Our apologies for the delay in response on our findings. here are some thoughts from the team.

This is a challenging one. On the flight pointed out (https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=3c5d8f&lat=47.388&lon=-0.101&zoom=8.4&showTrace=2025-01-29&trackLabels&timestamp=1738147772 ) we see many “odd” things with the transponder.

  1. The “emitter category” is D1, which is not even valid per the ADSB spec.
  2. Throughout the entire flight, the “radius of containment” Rc is shown as 926m, with the NACv of < 3m/s, other accuracy fields blank. That’s highly suspect and unusual.
  3. The flight cruises (according to the transponder) at 37,675 ft., which is a completely invalid IFR altitude in RVSM airspace.
  4. While level at that altitude, it shows a climb rate of 512-640 ft/minute for about an hour, but never actually climbs.
  5. After some time in Amsterdam, the transponder lights up on the ground a couple of the days, and on departure a lot of this is suddenly resolved (minus the category being D1). Still intermittent activation of the ground flag though.

I can’t say for sure, but I am guessing perhaps there is some odd issue with the transponder or electrical connections. Something is not right here. I would not rule out that the ICAO on this aircraft is incorrect also.

19

Hi,
Thanks for having a look at it. I’ve been following this now for a month or two and I cannot explain it otherwise than active manipulation of the data.
I have seen a few fake flights now in real-time. It sometimes shows several receivers for the plane so I wonder if the feeder software is hacked or if it is deeper in your system.
Sorry to mention them, but adsb_fi , airplanes_live , theairtraffic_com and planespotters_net are also affected… adsb_lol and FR24 so far not.
This issue just came up because spotters couldn’t find it after it “landed” at AMS but I wonder if this jet is the only one hiding or if more bizjet-owners are fooling your systems.

Since 01/03 these flights are probably real:
(adsb_lol , FR24 anonymous GL7T and they check with my own SBS-receiver when nearby, and some spotter reports and airport systems)

01/03/2025 LBG-CMF 0827-0925z
01/03/2025 CMF-LBG 1122-1218z

04/03/2025 LBG-CMF 1746-1830z
04/03/2025 CMF-LBG 1917-2009z

09/03/2025 LBG-CMF 1435-1527z
09/03/2025 CMF-LBG 1748-1840z

13/03/2025 LBG-GRS 0735-0846z
13/03/2025 GRS-LBG 1533-1656z
13/03/2025 LBG-MUC 1729-1837z

The flights at ADSBex are completely different. At least every time the real plane flies there is some activity on ADSBex, jumping on-ground or doing a fake-flight for which a copy can be found from a recent airliner’s flight-path (I suspect from the easily downloadable FR24 kml or csv-data) :

01/03/2025 LGW ground tracks 0700~1300z
04/03/2025 LGW ground tracks 0900~2200z

05/03/2025 LGW-ALG 1609-1828z, copy of 05/03/2025 LGW-ALG 0951~1210z BA2816 400AFF G-EUXG A321 (part near ALG missing but spot-on with FR24-track)

07/03/2025 ALG-BRU 0711-0927z, copy of 03/03/2025 ALG-BRU 2011-2208z TB3465 44D1A2 OO-TMB B38M (even parking at same gate, and landing in unrealistic close formation with C56X S5-BBM)

07/03/2025 BRU ground tracks 2100~2300z
09/03/2025 BRU ground tracks 0800~1830z
12/03/2025 BRU ground tracks 1140~1145z
13/03/2025 BRU ground tracks 0700~1800z

13/03/2025 BRU-MUC 1849-1955z, copy of 13/03/2025 BRU-MUC 0755-0924 DLH6RF/2283 3C6582 D-AILB A319 (for two days now the fake and the real aircraft were both at MUC)

15/03/2025 MUC-DUB 0942-1137z (landing 28L into departures 10R!), copy of 14/03/2025 MUC-DUB 1910-2100z EI357 4CA2CB EI-DER A320

18/03/2025 DUB-DOH 0703-1415z, copy of 16/03/2025 DUB-DOH 1351-2046z QR18 06A0BF A7-BDA B788

20/03/2025 DOH-CAI 0736-1036z, copy of 20/03/2025 DOH-CAI 0122-0430z 010204 MS938 SU-GFJ A20N (reception near CAI missing at ADSBex but spot-on with FR24-track including taxi-in)

All these flights connect nicely from one airport to the next one to show a realistic pattern. This cannot be explained by a malfunctioning transponder but in my view only by someone handpicking flights to base the next fake flight on.