- Flightradar24 said an "unprecedented" flood of users were watching SPAR19 — a US Air Force plane.
- The plane was carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from Malaysia to Taiwan.
- At one point, when the plane entered Taiwan's airspace, over 630,000 people were watching.
A popular flight-tracking site said its server was under strain on Tuesday morning because so many people were watching House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's flight to Taiwan.
Flightradar24 said on Twitter that there was "unprecedented sustained tracking interest" in SPAR19 — the call sign of a US Air Force plane carrying Pelosi en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Taipei City, Taiwan.
"Flightradar24 services are under extremely heavy load," the site said. "Some users may currently experience issues accessing the site, our teams are working on restoring full functionality to all users as quickly as possible."
At the time of the tweet, 345,000 people were tracking the flight. Later, when the plane entered Taiwan's airspace, Flightradar24 said 632,000 people were watching. At the time of publication, it was unclear how many people were watching the plane as it made its final descent.
—Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) August 2, 2022
When SPAR19 was just a few minutes away from landing, Insider was bounced from the server. A notice on the website said it is experiencing a "high volume of traffic" and has to limit the number of users.
SPAR19 left Kuala Lumpur Tuesday afternoon local time and landed in Taiwan's capital shortly after 10:45 p.m. local time.
Pelosi did not confirm a her visit to Taiwan before arrival. The much-speculated trip, however, enraged Beijing, leading to threatening remarks and repeated warnings to the US.
The White House warned on Monday that China could respond in various ways to Pelosi's visit, including military provocation like firing missiles.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby stressed, however, that Beijing has no grounds to use Pelosi's visit as "pretext" for increased military activity near Taiwan — like live-fire military exercises that China conducted near Taiwan last weekend.
