Ghost aircraft... suspicious Flight doesn't have any flight number!!

[Ahmad24]

I noticed there is a A320 Passenger aircraft (registration number EP-TAD) for an Iranian airline that makes strange flights (at least from what I see). There are many flight examples with no departure and destination information. Sometimes there is a flight number for those "no-departure" /"no-destination" flights that let's you figure out where t is coming from/going to BUT there are many flight examples that don't even have a flight number!! It appears flight transponder was kind of turned off during the flight (is this possible?) and sometimes for parts of the flights was turned on which makes the flight like a ghost!! Any ideas of why this is happening and what does that mean? Any interpretations are helpful... Thanks!

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[Ahmad24]

Any response from anyone?

[Fat Blob]

This is normal in areas with poor coverage.

[Ahmad24]

This is normal in areas with poor coverage.

Thanks for your reply but if this is due to poor coverage how come it is not the case for all the flights (different airlines) in the same route/area or at least parts of the same route? All the other flights ( different airlines) have an assigned flight number and have successfully communicated with ADS-B and no issues in those areas... Can a pilot somehow block or stop transferring the gps data by turning off transponder when he wants? Can it be technically a possibility?

[Oblivian]

To/from comes from one of 3 places
flight route commercial data - from the transponder callsign field.
If the people they buy it from, know the details..so does fr. If they dont enter a flight id. Nothing to use to look.

guessed.
Receiver location. No receiver or rubbish signal near destination? No info.

Copied details from last time callsign/flight id used.

[Ahmad24]

To/from comes from one of 3 places
flight route commercial data - from the transponder callsign field.
If the people they buy it from, know the details..so does fr. If they dont enter a flight id. Nothing to use to look.

guessed.
Receiver location. No receiver or rubbish signal near destination? No info.

Copied details from last time callsign/flight id used.

Thanks for your reply. Can you please elaborate on which "3 places" you are referring to?

Can you please elaborate on what do you mean by "if the people they buy it from..."? Buy what?

On the last part, " No receiver or rubbish signal near destination? No info.", My point is that for the same route other airlines have received good signal with no issues. Shouldn't it be the same for the aircraft in question?

[Oblivian]

Those ARE the three.

GO check out how it works/faq.

Then look at the flight Id field.

Pilots enter an id into transponder before start. Or, if the uploader has bad signal. May not receive it.

You highlight the effected bars yourself. The one with the flight id entered, knows the route. The rest, are best guess because it is not present

Working backwards, finding the route. Fr24 also dont know the aircraft or status, because there was no match to find it
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/i36601

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/clearing-up-call-sign-confusion/

[Fat Blob]

Thanks for your reply. Can you please elaborate on which "3 places" you are referring to?

Can you please elaborate on what do you mean by "if the people they buy it from..."? Buy what?

On the last part, " No receiver or rubbish signal near destination? No info.", My point is that for the same route other airlines have received good signal with no issues. Shouldn't it be the same for the aircraft in question?

FR has third party providers. One of those provides scheduling data. FR then basically overlays that over the flight and shows a departure point and destination. It's not always accurate. Another source is the airline themselves who provides that information along with the planned registrations for future flights (UA being one). It's not always accurate and can cause problems if there's a frame swap as the site is configured to take the scheduling data frame info over the hex data from the plane actually operating the flight, leading to errors in the data displayed.
Another source is the site itself self-populating the departure point and destination from good feeder coverage at each end, enabling the site to see the exact co-ords where the track started from and level, and the exact co-ords where the track ended and level, then matching the co-ords to the back-end database of airports and populating them in the flight list.

In third world areas like Iran, the feeder coverage is generally low compared to the Western countries and FR possibly don't get scheduling info from the airlines either, so the 'bitty' info you see in the flight history is a result of that. It's nothing to do with "ghost" flights or any other conspiracy. If you're in Iran then set up a feed yourself and help solve the problem.

[Ahmad24]

FR has third party providers. One of those provides scheduling data. FR then basically overlays that over the flight and shows a departure point and destination. It's not always accurate. Another source is the airline themselves who provides that information along with the planned registrations for future flights (UA being one). It's not always accurate and can cause problems if there's a frame swap as the site is configured to take the scheduling data frame info over the hex data from the plane actually operating the flight, leading to errors in the data displayed.
Another source is the site itself self-populating the departure point and destination from good feeder coverage at each end, enabling the site to see the exact co-ords where the track started from and level, and the exact co-ords where the track ended and level, then matching the co-ords to the back-end database of airports and populating them in the flight list.

In third world areas like Iran, the feeder coverage is generally low compared to the Western countries and FR possibly don't get scheduling info from the airlines either, so the 'bitty' info you see in the flight history is a result of that. It's nothing to do with "ghost" flights or any other conspiracy. If you're in Iran then set up a feed yourself and help solve the problem.

Thank you for your response and clarification on the tables. So my understanding is that the schedules may not be complete because for example airline didn't provide data to F24.

My (hopefully last question) is regarding the flight paths. My understanding is that generally in 3rd world countries there are less ADS-B antennas installed and therefore there are less accurate flight path data BUT please take a look at screen shots below. For the same route ( Tehran-Najaf) all the airlines show the path of travel completely except one airline that show the path partially. This generally means that there must have been just enough antennas (feeders?) So the all the airlines path of travel has been picked up . Right?

For the one Airline (ATA airlines/ flight I36650) that doesn't show the complete flight path, what is your explanation? To me it looks it has only tracking path when passing iran-iraq border. I am really not trying to make up conspiracy theories! But this doesn't make sense to me and just curious to figure out what's going on with it...

P.S: I am not in Iran , but thanks for your advice... Screenshot_20210828-235227.pngimage widge Screenshot_20210829-000133.pngScreenshot_20210829-000455.png

[Oblivian]

2 years ago vs now,

You can't compare that. Too much can change
Receivers could have gone on/off

[Fat Blob]

As Oblivian says. But also not all planes are equal. Older planes have older navigational equipment and many are not full ADS-B so tracking comes from MLAT. If there aren't enough feeders in the area for a good triangulation then you get intermittent flight tracks. Most of ATAs fleet is 30 years old.

[Ahmad24]

Awesome. Thank you both for clarification.