I'm a reporter working on an aviation-related story. I'm trying to determine if a Boeing 727-31 briefly recorded flying over Florida in 2009 was truly that plane. I've heard that air towers sometimes make typos in noting tail numbers, leading to mistaken identity.

The plane is N220NE. It's unclear where it took off from. Flightaware shows that it filed a visual flight plan mid-air. The plan called for a landing at Fort Lauderdale Executive. But it apparently never landed there -- no landing was reported, anyway, and that airport doesn't generally accommodate 727s.

I can't determine the accuracy of the track log showing groundspeed, coordinates, altitude, etc. The groundspeed is slow, at 145 mph, and the plane flies low, around 5000 feet, and up and down quite a bit. The log only covers a tiny snippet of flight time -- about 10 minutes.

The plane is listed as experimental over 200 knots. I've been told that a 727 could be registered as experimental if it were using a new part or something like that.

Is it possible this is a 727?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N220NE

(P.S. I also noticed that the planelogger notes seem to sayit was stored in february 2009, which would be shortly after the flight. But I'm not sure if I'm reading the notes correctly. Any help would be so appreciated.)

https://www.planelogger.com/Aircraft/N220NE/727-31_Tropical%20Air%20Trading%20Comp/495524

The comments on this aircraft seem a bit cryptic, I'm struggling to decipher them myself! They appear to be original comments from when we acquired the data source, so I don't know who added them to try and clarify.

However, my interpretation is as follows:

The aircraft was acquired by Charter America on 30th April 99. It was then put in storage in Roswell 28th Jan 05 to 10th December 05, when Tropical Air Trading Comp took over the aircraft. It was put in storage in Porlamar in November 09, and was in bad condition.

I'm not sure what the rest of the comment means - I think it was believed to have crashed in Mali in 2014, but there seems to be some doubt in this.

There is a single photo of it after 2009 on JetPhotos - http://www.jetphotos.net/photo/7540525 showing it in storage in Porlamar.

So the aircraft was certainly active at the time of the flight, it may well be that it diverted and landed somewhere else.

I hope this helps. May I ask why you are interested in this particular aircraft?

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, or email me at [email protected] if you don't want to discuss it publicly.