FAA Has No Clue About Who Owns Approximately 1/3 Of All Private And Commercial Planes
from the our-government-at-work dept
johnjac points us to the news that the FAA's record keeping is so bad that it is "missing key information" on who owns 119,000 out of 357,000 registered private and commercial airplanes. Apparently, the FAA is so bad at record keeping that its solution is to phase out every plane's registration and demand that everyone apply for a new registration to get its database back on track. Apparently, the old system was that you just had to register once, and then you were responsible for letting the FAA know if info changed, but not everyone does that. So, basically, the FAA is rather clueless about approximately 1/3 of what's in the sky.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[Cough] "spfluck wha..." ??
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
To be fair...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: To be fair...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: To be fair...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
> for owning a plane (or is there no vehicle tax
> in the US?).
Not federally. Each state has different rules on that sort of thing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ownership
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's not like there is a rash of unknown plane incidents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It's not like there is a rash of unknown plane incidents
The FAA has numerous requirements for maintenance on planes in order for them to be airworthy which makes sense, Registration is when you first buy it which puts you as owner of record for the plane. Then you are obligated to send in a change of address if you move and that is essentially all.
At the state levels you have some issues with taxes, but it's in the states with Property (not land) Taxes.
It sounds like the FAA is about to complicate a system that doesn't need it.
As for the airplanes that they have no clue about, most likey most of them aren't airworthy and will never fly again anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
FAA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re-documenting only works with follow-up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re-documenting only works with follow-up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why would they want to know?
When did plausible deniability become a bad thing?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Why would they want to know?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
doot doot doodle-oodle doot doot do do
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
hmm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: hmm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I don't know that I'd blame the FAA...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Let's Be Fair
he simplest path is to make various actions - airworthiness cert, flight plans, air traffic control use, etc. - require valid registration.
The other problem is that real enforcement means money, and I bet the FAA has been starved for small plane rule enforcement, concentrating on other issues.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
For what's it worth...
Taxes are paid to feed the FAA via embedded fuel taxes.
In the US, we enjoy a great deal of freedom to fly. Most smaller plane pilots are able to fly as easy as someone drives around town - they just hop into the plane and go without talking to a tower, FAA, etc.
In short, even if the FAA had a 100% accurate ownership database, they still could never know who and what is flying in the skies at any single point of time without a massive change in the system.
In the small plane world, a pilot will only deal with the FAA when they've broken some rule and gotten caught. In that case, then the FAA will make sure everything is in order, but the system is very much a reactive system and definitely not a proactive/check-point system.
Just my two cents - freedoms are extremely hard to obtain and yet we give them up so easily. Only in a country as rich as America would you give up your Freedoms AND gladly pay more taxes to Uncle Sam to "protect you".
Freedom
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So?
By the way CIA will be pissed if there funding source goes away.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]