Data Sources
Built on federal aviation records.
Every TailCheck report searches four public federal record sets — the same records used by brokers, insurers, and accident investigators — and stamps each section with the date of the file we read it from.
We search every source on this list for your tail, and stamp each one with the date of the file we read. Federal sources are sometimes unreachable — when one is, your report names it and marks that section Not checked. We never report an unreachable source as clean.
There is a second list further down this page: what we do not search, why it cannot be searched, and where to go and get it.
TailCheck reads public records. It does not inspect aircraft and cannot determine airworthiness — use it to decide what to inspect, never as the sole basis for buying or flying.
Aircraft Registry
What a “nothing found” covers
Currently registered and recently deregistered U.S. civil aircraft. It is a snapshot of the register as it stands, not a history of it.
How fresh it is
Read from our copy of the FAA bulk registration file, refreshed weekly by a scheduled job. A registration is dated with the newest FAA action in the file it was read from while that file is the one loaded, and otherwise with the date it was read — never with a build date. When a tail is missing from the snapshot we fall back to a cached live lookup, then to a live lookup.
What This Database Contains
Every U.S.-registered civil aircraft with its current owner, registration status, airworthiness certificate class, type certificate data, and engine/prop configuration.
What TailCheck Searches For
Why It Matters
This is the first thing to check and the easiest thing to get wrong. It confirms the seller is the owner of record, that the registration has not lapsed, and that the make, model, year and serial match the advertisement. A mismatch here is worth resolving before you book a trip to see the aircraft.
Example Data Point
Illustrative — not a TailCheck result. N172XX is a reserved placeholder tail; the figures show the shape of a result, not a finding about any aircraft.
Accident & Incident Database
What a “nothing found” covers
Our copy of the NTSB event data begins 2008-01-01 and runs to its most recent refresh, matched to the airframe by serial number. Anything before 2008 is not in the records we search — on a 1978 airframe that is most of its life — and a report says so beside every clean result.
How fresh it is
Read from our copy of the NTSB bulk event data, refreshed on a schedule; the CAROL query service is a fallback when the bulk copy has no row for the tail.
What This Database Contains
Federal investigation records of reported aviation accidents and incidents in the United States, including probable cause, contributing factors, and injury severity.
What TailCheck Searches For
Why It Matters
An investigated event is the one part of an aircraft's damage history that is written down in public and does not depend on the seller telling you. A recorded event tells you exactly which repair to ask the logbooks about. A clean result means clean back to 2008-01-01 and no further — it is not a statement about the airframe's whole life.
Example Data Point
Illustrative — not a TailCheck result. N172XX is a reserved placeholder tail; the figures show the shape of a result, not a finding about any aircraft.
Airworthiness Directives
What a “nothing found” covers
Part 39 rules published in the Federal Register from 1994 onward, matched to this make and model. Directives issued before 1994 are not in what we search. Whether any directive was complied with on this airframe is not in what we search either, and cannot be: 14 CFR 91.417 keeps compliance status in the aircraft's paper maintenance records.
How fresh it is
Federal Register API results, cached per make/model/engine. Directives are re-fetched when the cache entry expires, not on every report.
What This Database Contains
Legally mandated safety corrections for aircraft, engines, and propellers. Each AD specifies a required action, a compliance deadline, and the affected serial number ranges. The Federal Register API covers rules published from 1994 onward.
What TailCheck Searches For
Why It Matters
We tell you which directives apply, never that one was or was not done — nobody can tell you that remotely. Applicability is still the most useful page in a pre-buy: it is the list your mechanic will work down against the logbooks on the day, and knowing it in advance is the difference between finding a five-figure recurring inspection in week two and finding it in week six.
Example Data Point
Illustrative — not a TailCheck result. N172XX is a reserved placeholder tail; the figures show the shape of a result, not a finding about any aircraft.
Ownership History
What a “nothing found” covers
The current registrant from the FAA's registration file, plus any deregistration record the FAA holds for this serial number under an earlier N-number. A change of registered owner under the same N-number leaves no deregistration record, so the files cannot list the owners before the current one. Where the FAA's records for an airframe begin later than the year it was built, the report says so and names the date the records start — it does not call a one-owner chain a one-owner aircraft.
How fresh it is
Read from our copy of the FAA registration and deregistration files, refreshed on a schedule.
What This Database Contains
The current registration plus the deregistration records for the same serial number. It is a set of FAA records, not a chain of every owner.
What TailCheck Searches For
Why It Matters
Read against the accident and directive lists, the registration record is where the questions come from. A deregistration and re-registration around a recorded event is a specific thing to ask the seller about. Holding periods are measured only where the files record a completed change of hands; a chain with one record reports none rather than inventing one. It is a registration record, not a title search: it shows who was on the registration, not who held an interest in the aircraft.
Example Data Point
Illustrative — not a TailCheck result. N172XX is a reserved placeholder tail; the figures show the shape of a result, not a finding about any aircraft.
What we do not search
The other half of an honest report.
These are the things a buyer most wants and no database can give him. We used to imply we had some of them. We do not, nobody does, and each one below says where the answer actually lives.
Every report carries this list too, under the heading "What we checked and what we didn't". We take nothing from any referral on it.
Form 337 major repairs and alterations
We do not report major repair or alteration paperwork, and we do not print a count of it.
Why it cannot be done
No machine-readable federal source exists. The FAA bulk document distribution carries seven document types — bills of sale, security agreements, releases, and four registration forms — and Form 337 is not among them. Every route to a 337 ends at a human pulling paper.
Where to get it
The FAA Aircraft Registration Branch will send the complete record for a tail on CD for about $10. Aero-Space Reports will send the complete record including the repair and alteration paperwork for about $45, usually within a couple of days.
https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/copies_aircraft_recordsWhether an airworthiness directive was complied with
We tell you which directives name this make and model. We never tell you, or imply, that one of them was or was not done on this aircraft.
Why it cannot be done
14 CFR 91.417 places compliance status in the aircraft's paper maintenance records, which stay with the aircraft and transfer at closing. There is no database of it anywhere, for anyone.
Where to get it
The logbooks, read by your A&P/IA at the pre-buy inspection. Take our applicability list with you — it is the checklist that reading is done against.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-91/subpart-E/subject-group-ECFR8b0d5b3d4b2e1d8/section-91.417Service difficulty reports about this airframe
We do not carry a service difficulty section, and we will not print 'none on file' for one.
Why it cannot be done
The duty to file falls on certificate holders and repair stations, never on a private owner (14 CFR 91.1415, 121.703, 135.415, 145.221). Only 616 of 185,754 single-engine piston registrations have any SDR at all — 0.33%. 'None on file' therefore describes who operated the aircraft, not its condition, and printed beside an accident record it reads as a clean bill of health.
Where to get it
The FAA's own SDR system is public and free. Search it by make and model to read what has been reported against the type — which is a genuinely useful thing to know, and the only thing the data supports.
https://sdrs.faa.gov/Flight activity and whether an aircraft has been sitting
We do not report flights, hours flown, home base, or dormancy.
Why it cannot be done
ADS-B reception is a volunteer receiver network with uneven and class-biased coverage, aircraft never certificated with an engine-driven electrical system are exempt from carrying ADS-B Out under 14 CFR 91.225(e), and 40% of valid fixed-wing singles appear zero times across 2.7 years of data. We cannot tell a parked aircraft from one flying out of an airport nobody listens to, so we say nothing.
Where to get it
Ask the seller for the tach and Hobbs readings and the date of the last annual, then check them against the logbooks. That is the record that actually settles it.
Liens, encumbrances and title
We make no statement that title is clear and no statement that an aircraft is free of liens.
Why it cannot be done
The FAA document index is a recordation index, never a title search (14 CFR 49.17). Federal tax liens, possessory mechanic's liens and sub-threshold engine liens are structurally invisible in it. When we checked 350 tails our own code had called clear, 305 were a loan filed the same day as a release — the ordinary pattern of a sale plus a new mortgage. We would have been printing 'clear' over a live loan.
Where to get it
A real title search from an FAA-records title agency in Oklahoma City runs about $85 and takes a day or two. Order one before closing, every time.
https://www.aopa.org/go-fly/aircraft-and-ownership/buying-an-aircraft/title-search-and-escrowWhat the aircraft is worth
We publish no value, no value range, and no comparison to asking prices. This one is permanent.
Why it cannot be done
A number printed beside federal records is read as a finding derived from them. Ours would not be, and no dataset we can reach would make it one.
Where to get it
A certified appraiser, when a certified value is required. For a working figure, the published aircraft price digests and current asking prices for the type.
Methodology
How TailCheck synthesizes these sources.
Cached Federal Snapshots, Read in Parallel
Most of what TailCheck reads is our own copy of a federal bulk file, refreshed on a schedule — that is what makes a report take minutes instead of an afternoon. Where a source publishes no bulk file we query it and cache the answer. Nothing here is a live read of the federal record at the moment you click buy, so every section of the report is stamped with the date the record was read and the window it covers, and each card above states how fresh its source is.
The Four Records, Read Against Each Other
The records are more useful together than apart. A change of registered owner in the same quarter as a recorded NTSB event, or a directive that names a serial range this airframe sits inside, is a specific question rather than a general worry. That cross-reading is what produces the list of questions to put to the seller and to the mechanic — the part of the report a buyer actually carries to the pre-buy.
Risk Scoring, and What It Refuses to Score
Each finding is weighted by severity and recency, then normalized to a 1–10 scale. A source that did not answer is never scored as clean — it is reported as not assessed, and named. Nothing on the list below this section moves the score in either direction, because we did not look at it.
See it for yourself.
TailCheck reads public records. It does not inspect aircraft and cannot determine airworthiness — use it to decide what to inspect, never as the sole basis for buying or flying.