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FAA Service Difficulty Report Scraper

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FAA Service Difficulty Report Scraper

Scrapes the FAA Service Difficulty Reporting System (SDRS) — the public airworthiness-defect database maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration. Returns structured SDR records including aircraft make/model/serial, operator designator, difficulty date, and ATA (JASC) code, filterable by date range and aircraft type.

What it scrapes

The FAA SDRS is the canonical public record of aviation service difficulties — reports filed by air carriers, repair stations, and manufacturers when they encounter mechanical issues with aircraft or components. Over 1 million records covering all commercial and general aviation operations.

Populated fields per record:

  • Unique control number (SDR submission ID)
  • Difficulty date
  • Operator designator (4-character ICAO carrier code)
  • Aircraft registration (N-number)
  • Aircraft make and model
  • JASC/ATA system code (e.g., 5310 = fuselage)

Fields requiring detail page access (populated in the schema, empty in listing mode): submitter type, engine make/model, part name/number/condition, ATA description, nature of condition, precautionary procedure, remarks, and stage of operation.

Use cases

  • Airworthiness analysis: Track failure patterns by aircraft type, component, or date range
  • MRO reliability research: Identify high-incidence parts across operator fleets
  • Aviation litigation: Document history of known issues on specific aircraft
  • Insurance underwriting: Assess service difficulty trends for specific make/model combinations
  • Regulatory research: Monitor defect reporting trends across the industry

Input

Field Type Default Description
dateFrom string 30 days ago Start date for difficulty date range (MM/DD/YYYY)
dateTo string today End date for difficulty date range (MM/DD/YYYY)
aircraftMake string — Filter by aircraft manufacturer (e.g., BOEING, CESSNA)
aircraftModel string — Filter by aircraft model (e.g., 737, 172)
maxItems integer 10 Maximum records to return

Note: The SDRS server caps results at 1,500 records per query. For large date ranges, narrow with aircraft make/model filters.

Output

{
  "control_number": "IPXA2026051640926",
  "operator_designator": "IPXA",
  "difficulty_date": "5/12/2026",
  "aircraft_serial": "621UP",
  "aircraft_make": "BOEING",
  "aircraft_model": "7478F",
  "ata_code": "5310",
  "submitter_type": "",
  "engine_make": "",
  "engine_model": "",
  "part_name": "",
  "part_number": "",
  "part_condition": "",
  "nature_of_condition": "",
  "precautionary_procedure": "",
  "remarks": "",
  "stage_of_operation": "",
  "detail_url": "https://sdrs.faa.gov/Query.aspx?ControlNumber=IPXA2026051640926",
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-11T18:06:07.005Z"
}

Technical notes

The SDRS uses ASP.NET WebForms with per-session __VIEWSTATE tokens. The actor:

  1. GETs the Query.aspx form to establish a session and capture viewstate tokens
  2. POSTs search criteria with the viewstate tokens
  3. Parses the results DataGrid (8 columns: control#, operator, date, N-number, make, model, ATA code)
  4. Paginates via __EVENTTARGET postbacks if the result set requires multiple pages

No CAPTCHA, no Cloudflare, no proxy required.

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