LIVE · ISTANBUL (IST)

Live flights over Istanbul

See every aircraft over Istanbul Airport (IST/LTFM) 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 Istanbul ↗How to read it
Quick answer. Istanbul Airport (IST / LTFM) sits at 41.2749, 28.7321 near Istanbul, Turkey, at 325 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

Istanbul at a glance

IATA codeIST
ICAO codeLTFM
Airportİstanbul Airport
CityIstanbul, Turkey
Coordinates41.2749, 28.7321
Elevation325 ft

Track flights over Istanbul now ↗

What you will see

Reading the sky over Istanbul

Around a hub like Istanbul, 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 Istanbul 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 Istanbul

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

FAQ

Flights over Istanbul — FAQ

What planes fly over Istanbul?
Most traffic over Istanbul near Istanbul Airport (IST) 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 Istanbul to see the current picture.
How high do planes fly over Istanbul?
It depends on distance from the runway. Aircraft on final approach or initial climb near Istanbul (IST) 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 Istanbul?
Sometimes. A large share of military and state aircraft broadcast ADS-B just like airliners, and AeroScope surfaces those over Istanbul 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 Istanbul?
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 Istanbul Airport is legal; AeroScope simply adds fusion, integrity checks and anomaly analysis on top of it.