1.76M FAA defect reports translated into plain English by an LLM, free to search

alexgoughcooper · x · 2026-08-31

Journalist Henk van Ess launched aircraftdefects.com, turning the FAA Service Difficulty Reports archive — 1,757,827 reports from 1995 to last week — into a publicly searchable natural-language database. The reports were originally mechanics' write-ups in trade shorthand; a model (the site credits GLM-5.3-Flash) now reads each one live and explains in plain English what actually happened.

Users can search by airline, tail number, aircraft type, part, system code, or keyword — a lead-generation tool for reporters and a way for pilots, passengers, and victims' families to follow an aircraft's maintenance trail without reading maintenance lingo. The site notes it counts filed reports only, claims no rates, uses public-domain FAA data, and publishes its method and sources.

Related event: AI Site Translates 1.7M FAA Defect Reports into Plain English(4 posts)→

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