> But Montanez said there’s no immediate indication as to who the culprit is.
My understanding was you cannot fly without filing a flight plan (or is this just a Canada-specific thing?), and that flight plan has to be submitted by someone, so there has to be a trail here. If the plans were not filed, after all, how would he be able to tell the plane was flown "multiple times" during one of this extended absences?
EDIT: Yes it's Canada-specific, required for any flights over 25 nautical miles, including VFR https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-96-433/p...
Flight plans are only required for IFR flights in many countries. The VFR rules vary (altitude, area, etc). You can file a VFR flight plan if you want to but it is not required.
On the other hand you can't enter Clasa B airspace (the airspace around large airports) without permission from ATC. You also can't fly above 18,000ft in the US under VFR. That keeps small planes mostly away from the big jets.
For VFR (visual flight rules) flights in the U.S., a flight plan is not needed and many such flights are made without a flight plan. If a VFR flight is conducted without talking to anyone, to and from uncontrolled fields, then they would be squawking 1200, in which case the flight wouldn't be identified on Flight Aware. Unless there's some unique ID being transmitted by ADS-B...
I have a great story from my friend's father when we were kids in the western US. They lived at one of these residential airstrip developments, and owned a remote ranch about 60 min. away by air. The father was in the habit of commuting between his home and ranch at will.
Flying home one day he found himself flanked by two fighter jets and escorted to the nearest commercial airport. He was hustled into the back of a black SUV and taken to his home where is family was gathered in the living room giving statements to a bunch of men in suits. Turns out the POTUS was is town for a visit, and my friends father had failed to read the temporary flight restriction advisory..
> they would be squawking 1200, in which case the flight wouldn't be identified on Flight Aware
My 1200 flights frequently show up on FlightAware, FYI.
Yes, there has to be a trail, but not from flight plans.
In the U.S., ATC does not receive VFR flight plans (except for the weird special case of the D.C. SFRA, but even those are filed as IFR flight plans), only Search and Rescue. Flying in instrument conditions requires being on an IFR flight plan.
VFR (visual) flights don’t require filing a flight plan.