Flight Explorer

Virginia company tracks terror flights Washington Business Journal - by Taylor Lincoln Potomac Tech Journal

A Fairfax, Va., company that tracks and records the flight paths of airplanes has released dramatic animated illustrations of the flight path of the Boston-Los Angeles American Airlines flight that is believed to be the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center Tuesday morning.

The recording by Flight Explorer, a Fairfax-based subsidiary of Alexandria, Va.-based Flight Dimensions International Inc., shows the path of American Airlines Flight 11 heading west from Boston, then making an abrupt left turn in the vicinity of Albany, N.Y., and heading due south to New York City.

The plane crashed into the World Trade Center at about 8:45 a.m., about 15 minutes before a separate commercial plane crashed into the other World Trade Center tower.

The illustrations were depicted through a series of digital radar images that play back in a computer browser. Flight Explorer planned later Tuesday to distribute animated illustrations of the three other commercial flights that crashed Tuesday morning, said Jeff Krawczyk, chief operating officer of Flight Explorer.

Flight Explorer, which received requests for the illustrations from about 12 news agencies including all the major networks, also has learned that a United Airlines plane bound from Newark to San Francisco that crashed near Pittsburgh, Pa., at 10:10 a.m. had its flight path diverted. The flight was changed to arrive at Reagan National Airport, in Northern Virginia, Krawczyk said.

"When it got outside of Pittsburgh, it actually had a flight plan change to DCA," said Krawczyk said. "We hardly ever get a flight plan change. Very unusual."

Until the past few years, Flight Explorer was the only company that recorded flight paths and received frequent requests from the Federal Aviation Administration for recordings of flights, Krawczyk said.

By Ellen McCarthy, Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 13, 2001; 7:38 AM

Flight Explorer, a Fairfax company that makes software to track airplane flight patterns, helped media companies and airlines nationwide reconstruct the routes of the four hijacked planes on Tuesday.

The company, a subsidiary of Flight Dimensions International Inc., which sells its software for both personal and professional use, was able to create intricate charts and animated videos of the flights' actual and intended routes.

Flight Explorer receives information from the Federal Aviation Administration's radar system to provide continuous updates on the progress of each plane in the air.

Jeff Krawczyk, the company's chief operating officer, said all 22 employees began trying to sort through its data after the first crash was reported. Though there were 4,000 planes in U.S. airspace during the time of the attacks, Krawczyk said the company was quickly able to pinpoint the paths of the hijacked planes.

Flight Explorer software is sold to airlines, travel agents, frequent fliers and aviation enthusiasts for $10 to $250 per month, depending on the complexity of the system.

The Federal Aviation Administration referred media requests for flight patterns to Flight Explorer, which provided the data free.

Krawczyk said the company dealt with similar requests after other flight-related tragedies, including the SwissAir crash in 1998, but could never have been fully prepared for Tuesday's chaos. Usually about 1,000 people a day visit the Flight Explorer Web site. On Tuesday, the number of visitors surged to more than 57,000.