🛩 ADSB.lol Live Flights Scraper

🚀 Track live aircraft in seconds. A single radius query around London Heathrow returned 91 airborne aircraft with registration, type, altitude, and speed in one run.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-04 · 📊 23 fields per record · Global coverage · Live snapshot from the ADSB.lol community network

ADSB.lol is a community driven, ad free, filter free aggregator of ADS-B aircraft transponder data. This Actor turns its public API into clean structured records of the aircraft flying right now. Point it at any location, look up a specific flight by callsign or ICAO hex, watch a transponder squawk, or pull the live military feed.

Every result is a live snapshot. Aircraft positions, altitudes, and speeds reflect the moment the query runs, so two runs a minute apart will return a different fleet over the same area.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Aviation enthusiasts and plane spotters	Tracking aircraft over a chosen area in real time
Flight data analysts and researchers	Studying traffic density, routes, and altitudes
Developers building tracking dashboards	Feeding live aircraft positions into maps and apps
Journalists and OSINT investigators	Following military, emergency, or specific flights

📋 What the ADSB.lol Live Flights Scraper does

This Actor queries the ADSB.lol v2 API and returns one record per aircraft currently reported by the network. It supports five search modes:

• Near a location using a latitude, longitude, and radius in nautical miles.
• By callsign to follow a specific flight such as KLM701.
• By ICAO hex to look up an airframe by its 24 bit transponder address.
• By squawk code to find every aircraft squawking a code such as 7700.
• Military feed to pull aircraft flagged as military by the network.

For each aircraft you get its callsign, registration, ICAO hex, aircraft type, category, emergency state, squawk, barometric and geometric altitude, ground speed, track, vertical rate, selected altitude, latitude, longitude, distance and bearing from your search point, signal age, and signal strength.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchMode	enum	Yes	One of radius, callsign, icao, squawk, mil.
lat	string	radius mode	Center latitude, for example 51.47.
lon	string	radius mode	Center longitude, for example -0.45.
dist	integer	radius mode	Search radius in nautical miles, up to 250.
callsign	string	callsign mode	Flight callsign, for example EIN179.
icao	string	icao mode	24 bit ICAO hex, for example 4cad7d.
squawk	string	squawk mode	Transponder squawk code, for example 7700.
maxItems	integer	No	Free users limited to 10 items. Paid users up to 1,000,000.

Example 1. Aircraft near London Heathrow:

{
  "searchMode": "radius",
  "lat": "51.47",
  "lon": "-0.45",
  "dist": 50,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example 2. Every aircraft squawking the emergency code 7700:

{
  "searchMode": "squawk",
  "squawk": "7700",
  "maxItems": 50
}

⚠️ Good to Know: results are a live snapshot. The set of aircraft returned depends entirely on what is airborne and reporting at query time, so a busy hub returns dozens of records while a quiet rural point may return only a few.

📊 Output

Field	Description
🛩 callsign	Flight callsign reported by the aircraft
🆔 registration	Civil registration of the airframe
#️⃣ hex	24 bit ICAO transponder address
✈️ type	ICAO aircraft type code
🏷 category	ADS-B emitter category
🚨 emergency	Emergency state, usually none
📟 squawk	Transponder squawk code
📈 altBaro	Barometric altitude in feet, or ground
📐 altGeom	Geometric altitude in feet
💨 groundSpeed	Ground speed in knots
🧭 track	True track over ground in degrees
↕️ baroRate	Vertical rate in feet per minute
🎚 navAltitudeMcp	Selected altitude on the autopilot
📍 lat	Latitude
📍 lon	Longitude
📏 distanceNm	Distance from your search point in nautical miles
🧭 bearing	Bearing from your search point in degrees
⏱ seen	Seconds since the aircraft was last seen
📶 rssi	Signal strength in dBFS
🔎 searchMode	The mode used for this query
🔗 sourceUrl	The API endpoint the record came from
🕒 scrapedAt	When the record was collected
❌ error	Error message, or null on success

Real sample records from a radius run near London Heathrow:

{
  "callsign": "HLE56",
  "registration": "G-HIOW",
  "hex": "406ec5",
  "type": "EC35",
  "category": "A1",
  "emergency": "none",
  "squawk": "0020",
  "altBaro": 1050,
  "altGeom": 800,
  "groundSpeed": 117.9,
  "track": 100.26,
  "baroRate": -192,
  "navAltitudeMcp": null,
  "lat": 50.965302,
  "lon": -1.359781,
  "distanceNm": 45.681,
  "bearing": 228.8,
  "seen": 0,
  "rssi": -10.3,
  "searchMode": "radius",
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.adsb.lol/v2/lat/51.47/lon/-0.45/dist/50",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T20:10:35.929Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "callsign": "KLM701",
  "registration": "PH-BQB",
  "hex": "484369",
  "type": "B772",
  "category": "A5",
  "emergency": "none",
  "squawk": "2114",
  "altBaro": 30000,
  "altGeom": 29850,
  "groundSpeed": 461.1,
  "track": 255.81,
  "baroRate": 0,
  "navAltitudeMcp": 30016,
  "lat": 50.972672,
  "lon": -1.233215,
  "distanceNm": 41.87,
  "bearing": 224.9,
  "seen": 0,
  "rssi": -16.2,
  "searchMode": "radius",
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.adsb.lol/v2/lat/51.47/lon/-0.45/dist/50",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T20:10:36.003Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "callsign": "EJU56EW",
  "registration": "OE-LQS",
  "hex": "440735",
  "type": "A319",
  "category": "A3",
  "emergency": "none",
  "squawk": "5240",
  "altBaro": 39025,
  "altGeom": 39000,
  "groundSpeed": 475.9,
  "track": 152.47,
  "baroRate": 0,
  "navAltitudeMcp": 39008,
  "lat": 51.604797,
  "lon": -1.210946,
  "distanceNm": 29.534,
  "bearing": 286.3,
  "seen": 0,
  "rssi": -4.1,
  "searchMode": "radius",
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.adsb.lol/v2/lat/51.47/lon/-0.45/dist/50",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T20:10:36.031Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Five search modes cover location, callsign, hex, squawk, and military in one tool.
• No API key and no account on ADSB.lol are needed. The network is open and community run.
• Rich per aircraft detail with 23 fields including altitude, speed, heading, and position.
• Honest field handling. Fields that the network does not report for a given aircraft are left empty rather than faked.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Live positions	Multiple search modes	No source key required
This Actor	Yes	Yes, five modes	Yes
Manual map browsing	Yes	No	Yes
Closed commercial flight APIs	Yes	Varies	Usually no

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account through this sign up link.
2. Open the ADSB.lol Live Flights Scraper in the Apify Console.
3. Pick a search mode and fill in the matching fields, for example a latitude, longitude, and radius.
4. Click Start and let the Actor query the network.
5. Browse the results in the dataset and connect them to your own tools.

💼 Business use cases

Airspace and traffic analysis

Goal	How this Actor helps
Measure traffic density over a region	Run repeated radius queries and count aircraft
Map common routes and altitudes	Collect track, altitude, and position over time

Operations and ground awareness

Goal	How this Actor helps
Monitor arrivals near an airfield	Radius query around the field with a tight radius
Watch for emergency squawks	Query squawk 7700 or 7600 on a schedule

Product and dashboard development

Goal	How this Actor helps
Power a live map of nearby aircraft	Feed lat, lon, callsign, and type into your UI
Enrich a flight by its hex	Look up a single ICAO hex on demand

Research and OSINT

Goal	How this Actor helps
Track military activity over an area	Use the military feed mode
Follow a known flight	Query by its callsign

🔌 Automating ADSB.lol Live Flights Scraper

Connect this Actor to the tools you already use:

• Make and Zapier to trigger downstream workflows when a run finishes.
• Slack to post new aircraft of interest to a channel.
• Airbyte to load results into a warehouse.
• GitHub Actions to run scheduled snapshots.
• Google Drive to archive each run for later analysis.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research. Study how traffic patterns shift by hour, day, and weather.
• Personal. Identify the plane passing over your house by its hex and registration.
• Non-profit. Support noise monitoring or community aviation projects.
• Experimentation. Prototype a tracking app without standing up your own receiver.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Paste a dataset record into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot and ask it to decode the aircraft type, summarize the fleet over your area, or flag unusual squawks.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Is an ADSB.lol API key required? No. ADSB.lol is open and community run, so no key or account on their side is needed.

How fresh is the data? Every record is a live snapshot taken when the run executes. The seen field shows how many seconds ago each aircraft was last heard.

Why do two runs over the same area return different aircraft? Because aircraft are constantly moving in and out of the area and reporting at different moments. This is expected for live data.

What does the radius mode cover? It returns aircraft within the given number of nautical miles of your latitude and longitude, up to 250 nautical miles.

Why is registration or squawk empty on some aircraft? The network does not always receive every field from every transponder. Missing values are left empty rather than guessed.

What does altBaro of ground mean? The aircraft is reporting that it is on the ground rather than at a numeric altitude.

Can I look up a single aircraft? Yes. Use callsign mode for a flight callsign or icao mode for a 24 bit hex address.

What is a squawk code? A four digit transponder code. Some codes are special, such as 7700 for a general emergency.

How many aircraft can a radius query return? A busy hub can return dozens to over a hundred. A quiet area may return only a handful.

Does free usage have a limit? Free users receive up to 10 items per run. Paid users can request up to 1,000,000.

Is this affiliated with ADSB.lol? No. This is an independent tool that reads the public ADSB.lol API.

What coverage does the network have? Coverage is global but depends on volunteer receivers, so it is denser over populated regions with many contributors.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Results are available through the Apify API and dataset endpoints, so you can pull them into spreadsheets, databases, maps, or any service that speaks HTTP.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• OpenSky Flights Scraper
• OpenSky Network Scraper
• FlightAware Public Tracker Scraper
• Flightradar24 Live Flights Scraper
• OurAirports Scraper

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with ADSB.lol. Only publicly available data collected.