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VAPORTRAIL

Trust & verification

How we verify

We'd rather tell you exactly what we checked than let a badge do the talking. Every claim below maps to something specific — if you can't re-verify it yourself, we shouldn't have said it.

All information is provided as a courtesy to the buyer and is presumed to be correct. However, the buyer should independently verify all information before making a decision.

Free FAA registry & incident lookup

Every listing's N-number is checked against the FAA's public Releasable Aircraft Registry — registration status, registrant, make/model/serial, covering every registered aircraft. This data is synced monthly from the FAA's own bulk dataset, not looked up live, so it can lag a real-time FAA query by up to a month. Try the free lookup.

Incident/accident history is synced from the NTSB's own developer API, backfilled year by year — so older history is still filling in for some aircraft, and its absence doesn't guarantee a clean history.

Logbook & damage disclosure tiers

There are four distinct levels — we never use “Verified” loosely:

  • Not reviewed

    Seller-entered structured fields only. Not independently checked.

  • Logbook Reviewed — Appears Complete

    Vapor Trail staff checked the uploaded logbook documents for completeness — continuity of entries, annuals present, referenced repairs have attached paperwork — and the set appears complete. This is not an airworthiness review.

  • Logbook Reviewed — Appears Incomplete

    Same staff completeness check, but it turned up gaps — missing annuals, no 337 for a referenced repair, or broken continuity of entries. This is not an airworthiness review either, and it's a reason to ask the seller for the missing pages before you rely on the logbook.

  • Verified

    An actual A&P/IA reviewed AD compliance and repair sign-offs against the airframe. This is still not a physical inspection — a pre-buy inspection is always still required before you buy.

What we don't do

  • We never hold or transmit funds — use a licensed third-party escrow service for closing.
  • We don't physically inspect any aircraft — a pre-buy inspection is always your responsibility.
  • We don't guarantee a clean history for a listing with no incident data on file — it may simply not be imported yet.