How To Research Previous Plane Crash Incidents

The United States federal government has an extensive system for tracking those with pilot's licenses and the planes they fly. Because of that, it is relatively easy to find information on plane accidents and to do so quickly.

One can find some of this information on government websites and also can look up information on some commercial websites that track aviation traffic.

First, the government websites: The Federal Aviation Administration provides years of data on past aircraft accidents. Of course, more detail is available for the larger plane accident incidents. Here is a sample of what is available on the FAA website:

• One can download both preliminary accident data reports and the final accident reports.
• One can easily search through aviation accident data for the last 10 years, which provides both a summary of the aviation accident as well as a .pdf or image of the entire report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

One can also go directly to the NTSB website for this information.

For accidents that go back beyond 10 years, the web sites provide a report number. Using this report number, it is easy to order a copy of the actual report through the Freedom of Information Act.

Information on plane accidents and plane safety as well as pilot license information also is available through a commercial website called landings.com.

This site allows one to search under an individual's name for any planes registered to him or her. Then, one can use the tail number, or N number as it also is called, to search for the plane and then any accident history of that plane. This is a valuable way to look for any accidents or aviation crashes tied to a particular plane owner.

To get expert information about plane safety, there also are a number of newsgroups on the internet which can be searched by keyword on Google or other search sites. One can also join these newsgroups and post questions or inquiries about certain types of flying conditions or histories of particular types of planes or crashes. There are many very informed pilots and other aviation experts who frequent these newsgroups.

Many search engines provide an advanced search which one can use to search just news groups by topic or subject. This is often the best way to find these newsgroups and experts on air safety.