Articles - Lesssons Learned - NTSB Accident Search

We all have room to learn from the mistakes of others. From time to time, it can be truly helpful to stop and consider those mistakes to help insure that we do not make those same or similar mistakes ourselves. It is along this line of thinking that the NTSB goes to great lengths to determine the exact cause of any aviation related accident. Determining the cause of any accident is the first step toward benefiting from "Lessons Learned".  In the past, individuals had to go to some effort to gain access to the NTSB accident reports. With the Internet, we now have easy access to all of the existing reports. As individual pilots, aircraft builders, and aircraft restorers, this information can be very useful. This provides us with an outstanding resources for benefiting from lessons learned.

If you would like to review NTSB accident reports, you can search using any of the two following methods:

• Query Form: Search for records with a specific criteria.
  http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/Query.htm
  HINTS: If you are looking for cases involving homebuilt aircraft, set the "Amateur Built" value to "Yes". For homebuilt aircraft, the "Aircraft Make" is typically the name of the person that built the plane. You will likely have the most luck if you put the builder's last name only in this field if you are looking for a specific case. In some cases, the designer is named for "Make". The field "Model" will contain the aircraft name that you may be searching for (Examples: Long EZ, Pitts, RV-6, Kitfox, etc.). The values recorded for this field are sometimes inconsistent. Start your search with as little of the aircraft name as possible. For example "Cozy" instead of "Cozy Mark IV". In this example, the value for this field in many of the "Cozy" cases will not distinguish between "Cozy III", or "Cozy Mark IV" models.
• Monthly List: Browse though accident reports by month.
  http://www.ntsb.gov/Aviation/months.htm

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