Tracking Of Government's Jet No Longer Available After Najib's Vacation In Australia
This comes just days after Malaysiakini published an article detailing how the jet trailed around Australia when PM Najib Razak was on a vacation with his family at the land down under.
By Nandini Balakrishnan — 06 Jan 2017, 07:55 PM
In an interesting turn of events, Malaysiakini reported that the government's Airbus Corporate Jet 319 with the registration number 9M-NAA can no longer be tracked on FlightAware
A screenshot of the information that pop ups when we inserted Putrajaya's Airbus Corporate Jet 139's registration number on FlightAware.
Image via FlightAwareWhat is FlightAware?
FlightAware is the world's largest flight tracking data company which provides flight tracking solutions to more than 10,000 aircraft operators and service companies and over 12,000,000 passengers.
They get their data from air traffic control systems in over 55 countries, FlightAware's network of ADS-B ground stations in more than 150 countries, the Aireon space-based global ADS-B, the global datalink (satellite/VHF) via every major provider, including ARINC, SITA, Satcom Direct, Garmin, Honeywell GDC, and UVdatalink.
FlightAware provides everything from live flight data, airport delays, fuel prices, airline operational tools, weather maps, flight planning, flight routes, oceanic tracks, to navigation charts.
It is a company that is privately held and is based in Houston, Texas and has offices in New York and Singapore.
Can owners of airplanes request FlightAware to disable the public tracking of their aircraft?
FlightAware also allows owners or operators of an airplane to disable public tracking. Malaysiakini had gotten in touch with FlightAware and they confirmed that they offer blocking services so long the request comes with the airplane's registration details.
They also allow private tracking for owners of the aircraft that would ensure that only authorised users on their account will know their flight's activity. The general public will not be able to view it.
This comes just days after they published an article highlighting how the government jet trailed around Australia right when PM Najib Razak was holidaying there with his family
The last time the plane tracking data was available was on Tuesday, 3 January. 9M-NAA took off from Perth International Airport at 4.56pm local time and arrived at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah airport in Subang Jaya at 10.17pm.
According to Malaysiakini, that data was removed from FlightAware's site on 4 January.
On 31 December, Malaysiakini published an article tracking the movements of Airbus Corporate Jet 319 bearing the registration number 9M-NAA from 22 December till 31 December
It coincided with PM Najib Razak's son Mohd Norashman Najib's Instagram posts on the family's holiday in Australia.
Based on the data from FlightAware, Malaysiakini came up with the chronology of 9M-NAA's movements, matching it up with Norashman's Instagram posts:
On 22 December 2016, 9M-NAA took off from the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah airport in Subang Jaya at 12.07am and landed in Gold Coast, Australia at 10.06am on the same day.
The plane stayed in Gold Coast for less than two hours. It took off from there at 11.47am and landed in Brisbane at 12.09pm and was there for four days.
On 23 December, when the plane was still in Brisbane, Norashman posted a photo on his Instagram account that showed him golfing, with the hashtag, "goldcoast". It said, "Golfing with bros in Aussie land".
Four days later, on 26 December, the government jet took off from Brisbane at 9.11am and landed in Gold Coast at 9.35am
The plane was only there for two hours and 47 minutes. It left Gold Coast at 12.22pm and arrived at Perth International Airport at 2.47pm and remained there till 3 January.
In that period of time, Norashaman posted a few photos from Perth on his Instagram account.
On 28 December, Malaysiakini spotted Norashman's photo on Instagram which shows him playing an electric guitar with the hashtag, 'Perth' and on 29 December, he posted another photo of him cycling with a few friends in Perth.
The next day, on 30 December, he posted another photo of him playing golf, with the caption, "Trying to end 2016 in style", tagged "perth" and "meadowsprings".
On the last day of the year, Norashman posted a photo of Najib and himself. It was captioned, "Last cycle of the year with my dearest father. Happy New Year in advance to all and wishing everyone a blessed 2017 filled with love, elation and laughter."
