God's Eye View reconstructs Palm Beach County Learjet crash in timed 4D view
Bilawal Sidhu reconstructed the fatal Palm Beach County Learjet crash in a timed 4D view. The project combines ADS-B, weather radar, satellite imagery, ATC audio, dashcam footage and drone video.
TL;DR
- A fatal Learjet flight became a timed 4D reconstruction: the demo combines flight tracking, weather, satellite imagery, radio audio and ground-level recordings.
- God's Eye View is an ongoing open-source project for reconstructing real events, according to its creator.
- The published reconstruction omits the complete ATC recording; its creator explains why he shortened the audio.
Flightradar24 has published downloadable flight data, including higher-frequency aircraft reports. God's Eye View also supports spoken questions that produce annotations on its 3D globe, as Bilawal Sidhu describes in his open-source announcement.
Six sources on one timeline
Sidhu reconstructed the November 1 Learjet crash in Palm Beach County by bringing six evidence streams into a shared timeline:
- ADS-B flight tracking.
- Weather radar.
- Satellite imagery.
- Air traffic control audio.
- Dashcam footage.
- Drone video.
His account describes a descent from 35,000 feet to the ground in 78 seconds. All nine people aboard died, according to the accompanying post.
Icing reports and the last received altitude
The crew reported icing, moderate turbulence and precipitation before requesting a climb to 37,000 feet, according to Flightradar24's review of the ATC audio. Shortly after receiving climb instructions, they reported a rapid descent and an overspeed condition.
Flightradar24's account provides two specific telemetry limits:
- Last altitude received: 8,750 feet at 17:49:22 UTC.
- Reported vertical rate during descent: more than 32,000 feet per minute.
Sidhu separately discussed the weather in a reply, suggesting the aircraft might have entered the thunderstorm complex. That was his interpretation; Flightradar24 reported that the NTSB had dispatched a go-team to investigate.
The shortened ATC recording
Sidhu made a restrained editorial choice with the soundtrack: he omitted the complete ATC recording because he found it extremely hard to hear in full.
He makes these real-world reconstructions regularly, but called this one especially visceral and gut-wrenching in a follow-up.
The open-source browser app
God's Eye View was open-sourced on August 25, before this reconstruction. Sidhu says the project's aim is to bring available information into one view to help make sense of what happened.
God's Eye View is available on GitHub, where its documented setup includes:
- Runtime: local operation in a browser.
- Installation: Pinokio or the terminal.
- API keys: none required to start; optional keys can be added inside the app.
The code carries an MIT license. Its data-source documentation explicitly excludes third-party data and visual assets from that grant; those retain their own licenses and terms.