LIVE · CHICAGO O'HARE (ORD)

Live flights over Chicago O'Hare

See every aircraft over Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD/KORD) in real time — its type, operator, altitude, origin and destination, and an attention score — fused from 60+ public ADS-B feeds and refreshed about every seven seconds.

Open the live map over Chicago O'Hare ↗How to read it
Quick answer. Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD / KORD) sits at 41.9786, -87.9048 near Chicago, United States, at 680 ft elevation. To see what is flying over it right now, open AeroScope centred on those coordinates: it lists every aircraft overhead with type, operator, altitude and a 0–100 attention score, fused from 60+ ADS-B feeds and de-duplicated by ICAO 24-bit address.
Airport data

Chicago O'Hare at a glance

IATA codeORD
ICAO codeKORD
AirportChicago O'Hare International Airport
CityChicago, United States
Coordinates41.9786, -87.9048
Elevation680 ft

Track flights over Chicago O'Hare now ↗

What you will see

Reading the sky over Chicago

Around a hub like Chicago O'Hare, most of what is overhead is routine: airliners and cargo aircraft on published arrival and departure procedures, general aviation, and helicopters. AeroScope is observer-relative — instead of asking “where is flight X,” you fix the map on Chicago O'Hare and it continuously evaluates everything above it. Each aircraft carries a transparent 0–100 attention score built from eight rule-based factors (emergency squawk, military hex allocation, proximity, altitude and speed anomalies, loitering patterns and integrity-check failures), so the one worth a second look rises to the top instead of hiding in the traffic.

Spoofed or self-inconsistent broadcasts are flagged too: AeroScope runs a DO-260B integrity check (NIC/NACp/NACv/SIL), a Kalman normalised-innovation test and geometric-versus-barometric altitude residuals, and only raises a flag when at least two independent detectors agree.

Nearby

Other airports near Chicago O'Hare

See also: military aircraft tracking, is that aircraft a threat?, and how AeroScope works.

FAQ

Flights over Chicago O'Hare — FAQ

What planes fly over Chicago?
Most traffic over Chicago near Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD) is scheduled airline and cargo flights on published arrival and departure routes, plus general aviation and helicopters. AeroScope shows each aircraft overhead in real time with its type, operator and altitude — open the live map centred on Chicago O'Hare to see the current picture.
How high do planes fly over Chicago O'Hare?
It depends on distance from the runway. Aircraft on final approach or initial climb near Chicago O'Hare (ORD) may be only a few thousand feet up, while overflights cruise at 30,000–40,000 ft. AeroScope shows the barometric altitude of every aircraft, so you can tell an arrival or departure from a high overflight.
Can I see military or unusual aircraft over Chicago?
Sometimes. A large share of military and state aircraft broadcast ADS-B just like airliners, and AeroScope surfaces those over Chicago with an explanation of why each was flagged, plus a 0–100 attention score. Some sensitive flights operate without ADS-B and cannot be seen by any crowdsourced tracker.
Is it legal to track flights over Chicago O'Hare?
Yes. AeroScope uses only public ADS-B broadcasts that aircraft transmit openly on 1090 MHz and that volunteer receiver networks republish freely. Viewing this public data over Chicago O'Hare Airport is legal; AeroScope simply adds fusion, integrity checks and anomaly analysis on top of it.