What is valuable to the owner of an aircraft but not to anyone else? Aircraft logbooks. What makes logbooks so special? Logbooks can affect the value of an aircraft and are required to prove compliance with the regulations.
Aircraft maintenance logbooks are required by 14 CFR §91.417. While the FAA does not specify what form they must be in, logbooks must contain certain information. The same regulation also says you only need to keep maintenance records “until the work is repeated or superseded by other work or for 1 year after the work is performed.” While it is not necessary (or advisable) to store maintenance records onboard the aircraft they belong to, they must be produced for inspection by the FAA, NTSB, or law enforcement when requested.
Logbooks are also used to determine the aircraft’s compliance with airworthiness directives (AD). One of the first places potential buyers want to look when getting serious about buying an aircraft is the maintenance records. If logbooks cannot prove compliance with ADs, then conforming inspections will need to take place to put the aircraft back into compliance. Those conforming inspections may be expensive, which will reduce what a potential buyer is willing to pay. Also aircraft logs may give an indication of any accident history in the aircraft’s past. Accident history will also have a tendency to depress the value of an aircraft.
So, what do you do if you do not have your aircraft logbooks in your possession? The best option is to try to get the logs back.
Although the FAA and the NTSB can request inspection of aircraft logbooks, and there are some limited circumstances where the FAA can sanction a private party for not turning over maintenance records when a plane is sold (see 14 CFR §91.419), the FAA cannot compel a private party to deliver records to another private party. State law, however, may provide a remedy to obtain possession of the logbooks, usually in the form of a replevin action. A replevin action is a civil remedy which allows a plaintiff to recover personal property, like a logbook, that was taken illegally or not turned over in a transaction. The only other remedy is to sue for conversion, which means instead of attempting to gain physical possession, you are suing for money for the diminished value of the aircraft or the cost of recreating the logbooks. If you do not have the full set of logbooks, then the future prospects of selling the aircraft or getting full price may be damaged.
Of course, that assumes you know who has your logbooks. If the logbooks are missing and cannot be found, the FAA does give some guidance on recreating records in Advisory Circular (AC) 43-9C. This AC states that to reconstruct missing logbooks you need to figure out the total time on the airframe. You do this by reference to other records such as those from mechanics or from the FAA files. If you are still unable to establish times, then the owner/operator can make a notarized statement describing the missing logs and the best estimate of time in service. You can do this yourself or hire a company that does this task for you.
Missing logbooks may also be claimed as an insurance loss. Whether a loss is covered depends on the precise terms of the policy. If the policy is silent as to coverage of logbooks, insurance companies will frequently deny a claim.
Aircraft logbooks are certainly documents to keep safe to prevent the value of an aircraft from diminishing and to prevent any entanglements with regulatory enforcement by the FAA. While taking legal action may help you retrieve either the logbooks themselves or the costs to recreate them, it can be time consuming and expensive to go down that path. Being proactive by ensuring purchase agreements and insurance policies take the possibility of missing logbooks into account will help protect your aviation investment.
