How do you lookup airplane tail numbers?

May 2, 2007 2:26 PM

Does anyone know of a way to lookup a tail number on a private airplane to see who owns it? Nothing nefarious going on here, honest. I believe we have the tail number and are trying to find out who owns the plane.
posted by philad to Travel & Transportation (11 answers total)

I think you're looking for this.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:33 PM on May 2, 2007

FAA Aircraft Registry
posted by TeamBilly at 2:33 PM on May 2, 2007

Response by poster: Never underestimate askmefi! Thanks people.
posted by philad at 2:36 PM on May 2, 2007

You can also put it into Google.
posted by KRS at 2:37 PM on May 2, 2007

Related -- this WSJ article from earlier this week is interesting -- 65,000 Airplanes Tracked Globally -- Frenchman's Hobby Grows Into Authoritative Registry.
posted by ericb at 3:20 PM on May 2, 2007

And here's the site if you need the UK database:

CAA UK G-INFO Database
posted by SneakyPete at 4:14 PM on May 2, 2007

And for Canada: Canadian Civil Aircraft Register.
posted by mendel at 6:27 AM on May 3, 2007

Response by poster: Oops! Turns out we have a name of the owner of the plane but not the tail number. Out of luck?
posted by philad at 11:58 AM on May 3, 2007

Can you give us some context here? What, exactly, do you want to know about the plane?
posted by TeamBilly at 12:49 PM on May 3, 2007

Response by poster: Context: My wife is planning a conference where big whigs are flying in on their private jets. They tend to be a secretive bunch I guess and aren't telling her exactly when they're arriving. This is making it hard to arrange transportation for them once they get to the airport, so we were hoping there was a way to link their name to their plane so we can figure out when they're coming in. After thinking about my question in a little more detail I'm realizing that looking up a name and trying to find out which jet they own is probably not possible for privacy reasons.
posted by philad at 3:33 PM on May 3, 2007

Even the privacy reasons don't matter -- Bob Famousguy's jet isn't usually owned by Bob Famousguy, it's owned by a holding company, or a leasing company. And some of them will be subscribed to jet timeshares, where they'll be flying in on one of the dozen jets in the fleet. And some companies will have a half-dozen jets in the first place, and so on.

Even then, the amount of notice a tail number is going to give you isn't more than the amount of notice the bigwig walking across the tarmac is going to give you. Maybe an extra five, ten minutes.
posted by mendel at 6:59 PM on May 3, 2007