So this might be weird and niche but today in Crémines I noticed a big & rather loud helicopter fly by and decided to take a picture of it.

Out of curiosity I looked up the registration (HB-ZOK) on flightradar and it showed me a completely different small red helicopter. Thinking that flightradar might not have the up to date info I also checked on the bazl site and saw that it's the same as flightradar and it shows up as deregistered since 2021.

Does anyone know what this might be? Is this a mistake or a helicopter that was flying around illegally or for the military? I'm really curious.

by nayynayyonscreen

10 comments

  1. I’d write a Mail to the Bazl and explain it. They might know it and tell you the reason or else they are probably interested in it, as to why someone flies with a wrong registration.

  2. Do you remember time and heading? Might be possible to check who was running that route at the time?

  3. It may be that BAZL re-used the registration for this new helicopter and that this has not yet made it to the public website.

    They have a published phone number; you can call them and ask.

  4. It’s not HB-ZOK but HB-ZQK. If you look really close, you can barely tell that the O is slightly thicker in the bottom right corner.

    And if you look up pictures of HB-ZQK online and in FR24, it matches this helicopter.

  6. > Out of curiosity I looked up the registration (HB-ZOK) on flightradar and it showed me a completely different small red helicopter.

    This is your reminder that flightradar uses public data (for live tracking and registration information) and that you should always take everything displayed with a grain of salt.

    > Is this a mistake or a helicopter that was flying around illegally or for the military?

    The data on the internet is most probably not up to date, air traffic controllers can see everything that’s flying and checks are in place at airports to make sure everything is in order.

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