The 19-year-old who became famous for creating a Twitter account that tracked and posted Elon Musk’s private jet trips is again grabbing headlines; this time around by shifting his focus towards Russia. Jack Sweeney, a college freshman student at the University of Central Florida, has a new target in the form of Russian oligarchs and VIPs. The teenager has set up a new Twitter account called @RUOligarchJets that tracks the movements of various aircraft owned by Russian billionaires. It uses the same method that tracked the movement of the G650ER owned by Elon Musk – use bots to detect air traffic data and automatically post it on Twitter.
Sweeny claims he was inundated by requests to track the aircraft owned by Russian oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine. The college student says he had limited information on billionaires from Russia and their fleet of aircraft. ‘Before this, I didn’t even know there were these influential oligarchs like this. They probably do have a decent amount of power from what I can understand,” Sweeney told Bloomberg.
Alexander Abramov's Jet D-APGS Took off from London, England, GB. pic.twitter.com/SsiYfkINLr
— Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) March 1, 2022
“The aircrafts these oligarchs have are absolutely crazy. Their planes are huge compared to other jets.” The list of oligarchs being tracked by the account includes Vladimir Potanin, Roman Abramovich the owner of Chelsea football club, and Alexander Abramov a steel billionaire. A total of 39 planes and helicopters belonging to 19 oligarchs are being monitored by the account
RSD073 Landed near Moscow, Moscow Oblast, RU. Apx. flt. time 3 Hours : 25 Mins. pic.twitter.com/Hqv1BxTfcM
— Russian VIP & Putin Jets (@PutinJet) March 1, 2022
The 19-year-old has also been asked to track the Russian President’s movement. “People have been asking me about Putin for a while, they wanted to know if they could track him,” said Sweeney to NBC. “It’s just been crazy. I just figured some people would be interested in it. I just didn’t think all kinds of people would be.” Sweeney set up a separate Twitter account that tracks planes registered to President Putin and other Russian VIPs. However, he warns that the information posted there might not be very accurate as there is limited flight data available in Russia.
The flight data of Russian oligarchs and VIPs released on Twitter doesn’t really serve much of a purpose to anyone. It also offers limited information as it doesn’t really tell if the owner is on board or not. But many believe that the aircraft belonging to powerful Russian businessmen in other countries can be impounded to put more pressure on the Russian President. Recently, Putin’s superyacht named Graceful was seen fleeing from Germany to escape from sanctions. As revenge for Putin’s action in Ukraine, hackers decided to alter the callsign of his superyacht on various marine traffic data aggregating websites to send a message to the president.
Took off from Austin, Texas, US. pic.twitter.com/6i3cwXkEJS
— Elon Musk’s Jet (@elonmuskjet) February 28, 2022
He still continues to track Elon Musk’s jet.
