Nearly six million attempt to follow Queen’s coffin on flight tracking website

The vast number of viewers caused problems for Flightradar24’s website around the time the plane took off from Edinburgh.

Dignitaries prepare for the arrival of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II at Edinburgh Airport (PA) (PA Wire)

Tracking website Flightradar24 said “nearly six million people attempted to follow” the flight carrying the Queen’s coffin from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt in London.

The number of people attempting to track the plane on Tuesday caused the website to run into problems, but not before more than half a million were able to briefly follow.

“In the moments before take-off, nearly six million people attempted to follow the flight, causing disruption to our platform,” a statement on Flightradar24’s Twitter account read.

“We are working to ensure stability across our platform at the moment.”

A later tweet confirmed: “600k able to follow. Six million total attempts (which is what brought the site down).”

Flight KRF01R was the most-tracked flight in the world on Flightradar24 once the website recovered, with more than 350,000 watching the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III as it moved south through the UK, having left Edinburgh at 7.42pm on Tuesday.

The plane landed shortly before 7pm in north-west London.