Whether you're on the aviation beat or a general assignment reporter sent to cover an airplane accident, you'll want to bookmark the Landings Web page, one of the best sources of aviation information on the Internet.

At the Landings site you'll be able to search federal government databases to find out who owns an aircraft, if someone has a pilot's license, and what mechanical problems an airplane has had.

You'll also find links to airport and airline Web sites, aviation news and weather reports, and Internet newsgroups where people discuss aviation issues.

Landings is a private site operated by Dr. Gunther Eichhorn, a project scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Yonatan Yoshpe of Drive Inc., a company that makes database and search software.

Much of the data at the site comes from the Federal Aviation Administration or the National Transportation Safety Board. But the Landings site has put these different aviation resources together under one roof for easy access.

To search one of the databases at the Landings site, go to the main home page and in the blue menu at the top left click on the third highlighted entry: 'Search / DB.'

At the new page is a long menu of links to the various databases and on the left an 'Index' of quick links to the databases.

Aviation Databases

Among the available databases are:

Certificated Pilots - Where you can find out if someone has a pilot's license

N-Number - Where you can search for the owner of an aircraft using the plane's 'N' registration number, or search by the name of a person or company to see what aircraft they might own.

Service Difficulty Reports - Where you can find reports filed with the Federal Aviation Administration on mechanical problems an aircraft has had that required maintenance. Among the options are searching by the registration number of a plane, by the manufacturer and model of an aircraft, by a type of engine or propeller, or by the name of an aircraft part.

NTSB Accident Reports - Where you can find reports by the National Transportation Safety Board on aircraft accidents.

Pilots Database

To search for a pilot, at the database page entitled 'Landings: Search Engines: Top Aviation Search Interfaces,' scroll down and in the index on the left click on the entry for 'Certificated Pilots.'

At the new screen click on the highlighted words 'Certificated Pilot Database,' and at the page that comes up scroll down to the section labeled 'Specify Search Parameters.'

In the boxes there you can type in the first name and last name of a person and then click on the 'Send Query' button to see if the person has a pilot's license. If the person is listed, you'll get an address, the type of license the person has and the date of his/her last medical examination.

Aircraft Ownership

Similarly, you can do a search to find out what aircraft a person or company owns, or you can search by the registration number of an airplane to see who owns it.

To do these searches, return to the database page entitled 'Landings: Search Engines: Top Aviation Search Interfaces' (it's the page we got to by clicking 'Search / DB' at the landings home page).

This time in the index on the left click on the first entry for 'N-Number.'

At the new page, to search by the registration number of a plane for its owner click on 'Basic Search.' Or to find out if a company or a person owns an aircraft, click on 'Owner Search.' For the owner search, you then type in either a company name or a person's name, using the format: lastname firstname.

Service Difficulty Reports

You also can search to see what Service Difficulty Reports were filed on a specific plane, on a type of aircraft, etc. These reports are compiled by the FAA and basically provide a history of some of the maintenance done on an aircraft.

First, return to the database page entitled 'Landings: Search Engines: Top Aviation Search Interfaces.'

This time in the index on the left, scroll down and click on the entry for 'Service Difficulty Reports' (it's about three-quarters of the way down in the index).

At the new screen, click on the top entry, 'Service Difficulty Reports (SDR's),' and at the next page scroll down to the section labeled 'Specify Search Parameters.'

There you'll see a number of search boxes you can use to do searches by the name and model of an aircraft manufacturer, an engine or propeller manufacturer or even the name of a part. The database will retrieve Service Difficulty Reports filed on each.

You also can search for the Service Difficulty Reports for a particular aircraft if you know its registration number.

Thus when the Alaska Airlines flight crashed in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, some news organizations wrote stories about the history of mechanical problems with that aircraft, based in part on the Service Difficulty Reports. For example, see the San Francisco Chronicle story of February 2, 2000.

The Service Difficulty Reports cited in that story are available online in the Landings database.

To find the Alaska Airlines reports, at the page of search boxes for Service Difficulty Reports look for the one labeled 'N Number.' In that box type ' 963AS' (which is the registration number of the Alaska Airlines plane that crashed) and then scroll down and click on the gray button labeled 'Send Query.'

When the search is completed you'll see an index of 25 Service Difficulty Reports filed on this aircraft, listed in reverse chronological order (to get another 21 of the most recent reports, click on the highlighted words 'Next set of Reports' at the bottom).

Click on any of the highlighted words for a Service Difficulty Report to call up a copy of the report, which includes a description of the maintenance problem and what was done to correct it.

NTSB Accident Reports

Finally, you can search for National Transportation Safety Board reports on past plane crashes.

To do that search, return to the database page entitled 'Landings: Search Engines: Top Aviation Search Interfaces.' This time in the index on the left, scroll down and click on the entry for 'NTSB Accident Reports' (it's about three-quarters of the way down in the index).

At the new page click again on 'NTSB Accident Reports,' and then scroll down to the search boxes. You'll see you can search for reports by the date of the accident, the registration number of the plane, the state in which the accident occurred, the make of an aircraft, the name of an airline, etc.

One limitation on this database is that it does not have the last several years of NTSB reports.

To get the more recent reports, you can go to the NTSB's Web site, which also has the accident reports database available online. That's at: http://www.ntsb.gov/Aviation/aviation.htm.

Other Landings Resources

Besides the searchable databases at the Landings Web site, other features include:

Links to the home pages of airports, both in the United States and in foreign countries.

A list of the home pages of airline companies around the world

News stories on aviation supplied by Pacific Flyer.

A list of Usenet newsgroups where people discuss aviation issues

A page of links to weather services on the Internet

For those features, scroll to the bottom of the main Landings page and check the listings in the 'Aviation's Directory.'

The FAA also maintains a number of databases at its Web site, including ones on near midair collisions and airline traffic statistics. Those are available at: http://nasdac.faa.gov/internet/fw_search.htm.

Evaluating the Data

One big caution on all this data (and especially the Service Difficulty Reports): You should treat information that you find on the Internet primarily as a potential lead for a story or as background to help you in interviewing experts and other people.

Some of the information may be out of date or subject to misinterpretation. The only thing worse than being ignorant of the resources available on the Internet is blindly using the information you find there in a story, without first checking with someone familiar with the data who can evaluate it for you.

For more information on some of the aviation databases I've described -- including the limitations and pitfalls of each - go to the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting Web site (you also can purchase some of the aviation databases I've described from NICAR in CD-ROM format).

And check out the Federal Aviation Administration's 'Journalist's Guide to the FAA'. It has a list of FAA offices and contacts, an explanation of what the different FAA divisions do, a description of how the air traffic control system works and a quick list of what agencies to contact if an aircraft accident occurs.