ADS-B glitches: impossible speeds, altitudes and mismatched identities

Some numbers in ADS-B reports are wrong. A bit error, a faulty GPS receiver, a misconfigured transponder or a message credited to the wrong aircraft can produce a light aircraft at 1,000 knots, an altitude no aircraft could reach or a registration that does not match the transmitter's address. These stories collect such readings and show the reports around them.

The site compares each suspect value with the aircraft's own reports just before and after it, so a single spike between ordinary neighbors stands out. A reading far beyond what the listed type can fly is filed as a mismatch with the type and never as performance, and identity checks compare the registration, the address block and the callsign. Spikes in positions estimated by multilateration stay in review, because the receiving network computes those positions instead of the aircraft reporting them. Position jumps and reports of a space vehicle are always held for review as well.

A glitch story shows that a reading was wrong or inconsistent. It usually cannot show which part of the chain failed, the aircraft's equipment, the radio link or the decoding, and it never describes what the aircraft did. The neighboring reports are the best evidence of the true value, and each story lists them beside the suspect reading.