Flight tracking service Flightradar24 said House Speaker Nancy Pelosis’s plane was the most-tracked in its website’s history as it made its way to Taiwan on Tuesday, with 2.92 million people in total who followed its progress.
The U.S. Air Force plane Boeing C-40C, with the call sign SPAR-19, had a 708,000 viewership as it landed in Taipei after around seven hours from its departure in Kuala Lumpur, avoiding flying over the South China Sea.
“At the peak, 708,000 people were tracking SPAR19. That sets a new record for live tracking,” Ian Petchenik, Flightradar24’s director of communications, told FOX Business in a statement.
In his interview with FOX Business, Petchenik also noted that the former holder of the most-tracked flight was that of Alexei Navalny’s, a Putin critic, as he was returning home to Russia after surviving a suspected poisoning attempt, with 550,000 viewers at its peak.
Pelosi’s controversial trip to Taiwan amid tensions with China made her the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island since 1997.