An aircraft tracking website has expressed shock after more than one-and-a-quarter-million users tracked an Aurigny flight from Guernsey to Manchester – becoming one of the most tracked flights in its history.

Flightradar24 said it had “no idea why” so many people were curious about the flight which departed the island at 17:36 yesterday.

“This is the most interested anyone has ever been in an ATR 72,” it said in a post on social media, which racked up thousands of engagements.

At that point the aircraft G-ORAI was being followed live by 339,000 people, but it quickly increased to over 760,000 before peaking at over 1,300,000.

Some have suggested that bots could be responsible for the high numbers. 

The most tracked flight in Flightradar24 history was when around 6m people attempted to follow the aircraft carrying the body of Queen Elizabeth II from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt. 

The servers crashed due to high demand – with up to 5m people following the RAF aircraft at some point in its journey – but it’s unclear what the peak number of people tracking it was.

Pictured: The number of people tracking the Aurigny flight from Guernsey to Manchester peaked as the ATR-72 aircraft passed over the Midlands.

The record was previously held by US politician Nancy Pelosi as she landed in Taiwan when she was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

708,000 people followed live as the aircraft landed in Taipei, with over 2.9m tracking the aircraft at some point in its journey. 

Just under 500,000 people tracked Russian President Vladimir Putin as he landed in Alaska to meet with US President Donald Trump earlier this month.