{
  "id": "2002-november-december-aviation-data-updated",
  "slug": "2002-november-december-aviation-data-updated",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-aviation-data-updated.html",
  "year": 2002,
  "month": "November December",
  "monthNum": 11,
  "headline": "Aviation data (updated)",
  "kicker": "NICAR UPDATE",
  "author_name": "",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "IRE and NICAR",
  "summary": "NICAR provides journalists with aircraft registration data covering over 320,000 planes and FAA accident/incident databases spanning from 1973 to 2002, enabling reporters to investigate plane crashes and mechanical issues. The data library offers additional transportation databases including vehicle recalls and hazmat accidents.",
  "keywords": [
    "aircraft",
    "accidents",
    "databases"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Public Safety",
    "Data & Databases"
  ],
  "technologies": [],
  "full_text": "Aviation data (updated)\n\nThe Aircraft Registration Database has information on more than 320,000 planes, including those owned by businesses, individuals and government. Current through May 2002, the database allows journalists to find the owner of an aircraft by looking up the registration number (commonly called the \"N number\"). This comes in handy for covering plane crashes, especially if someone can identify the N number on the plane's tail. The data also provides the plane's serial number, which is useful when searching the FAA Service Difficulty Reports database, also available from NICAR, for reported mechanical problems.\n\nFind out about accidents and other incidents involving airplanes in the United States with the FAA Accidents and Incidents database, from 1990 through August 2002. The database contains reports of crashes, collisions, deaths, injuries, major mechanical problems and other events, from small private planes to large commercial carriers. Another database available from NICAR has accidents and incidents from 1973 to 1989.\n\nThe Database Library offers other transportation databases, including vehicle recalls and complaints; accidents involving hazardous materials and the NASA Air Safety Reporting System.\n\nTo order or find out more about these databases, visit www.ire.org/datalibrary or call 573-884-7711.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2002-november-december-bits-and-bytes",
      "score": 0.51
    },
    {
      "slug": "2000-march-nicar-databases-as-of-feb-1-2000-2",
      "score": 0.354
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-december-foreign-planes",
      "score": 0.332
    },
    {
      "slug": "2002-february-data",
      "score": 0.329
    },
    {
      "slug": "1998-july-nicars-database-library-has-recently-updated-three-federal-aviation-administration-databases",
      "score": 0.285
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-aviation-data-updated.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-aviation-data-updated.json"
}