Reference · built on requestCommons signalAviation & marine

NTSB CAROL

US aviation accident and incident investigations and safety recommendations from the NTSB, by search, download or subscription-keyed API.

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About

CAROL, Case Analysis and Reporting Online, is the National Transportation Safety Board's query tool for investigations and recommendations. It covers aviation investigations from 1983, surface-mode investigations (highway, marine, rail, pipeline, hazardous materials) from 2010, and all NTSB safety recommendations; the aviation search reaches records from 1962. Results download as Download Data (JSON) or Download Summary (CSV). Alongside CAROL the NTSB posts avall.zip, a Microsoft Access database of all aviation investigation data refreshed monthly with weekly change files, and runs an API Developer Portal with an Aviation API, Safety Recs and Data Dictionary behind a subscription key.

An operator watches new cases and recommendations that touch your aircraft category, state or operating rule and proposes an incident draft or a compliance note for your approval.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from NTSB CAROL and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Investigation cases from the Basic Search, Aviation Search and Custom Search Builder, filtered on fields such as Event.State, Event.Country, Event.HighestInjury and Event.Mode
  • Aviation-specific filters Aircraft.AircraftCategory and AviationOperation.RegulationFlightConductedUnder
  • Safety recommendations as a second target collection, including the published searches for Most Wanted List topics
  • GetCase from the Aviation API, keyed by NTSB number or Mkey, through developer.ntsb.gov
  • avall.zip, the monthly Access database, plus weekly change files up01, up08, up15 and up22 for each month at data.ntsb.gov/avdata
  • Monthly aviation accident lists sorted by date and updated daily

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Draft an internal record when a case names your category

    Search new cases by Aircraft.AircraftCategory and Event.State. When one matches your operation, the operator proposes an incident draft carrying the NTSB number and the case summary for your review.

    With Incident Draft, Near-Miss Triage

  • Track recommendations aimed at your operating rule

    Query the recommendations collection with the AviationOperation.RegulationFlightConductedUnder filter. The operator proposes a compliance evidence entry per recommendation and shows the JSON it read.

    With Compliance Evidence

  • Brief leadership on cases in your states

    Pull the monthly change files or the daily accident list for the states where you fly. The operator proposes a weekly summary and lists every case it counted.

    With Weekly Review, Morning Brief

Requirements

  • For the API: a signed-in Developer Portal account, whose subscription key is shown under Profile
  • A descriptive User-Agent header such as OrgName-AppName/1.0 with a contact; generic scripted values may be blocked
  • A reader for Microsoft Access 2000 MDB files if you use avall.zip, with codman.pdf and eadmspub.pdf as the schema documents
  • The aircraft categories, states or operating rules you want to match cases against
Authentication
CAROL search and the avdata downloads need no account. The Enterprise API needs a Developer Portal account from developer.ntsb.gov/signup and a subscription key sent as the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header.

Limits

  • API policy: 1,000 calls in any rolling 60-second window and 50,000 in any rolling 24-hour window, per subscription key or client IP
  • The Developer Portal shows its API list and operations only after sign-in
  • NTSB plans to move the downloadable aviation dataset to the Enterprise API on April 5, 2027 and points to GetCasesByDateRangeV2 for bulk retrieval
  • On October 2, 2001 minor cases marked SA that were neither accident nor incident were removed; pre-1983 briefs differ in format from later reports

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

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Questions and answers

Do I need a key to read NTSB cases?
Not for CAROL or the downloads. Search results export as Download Data (JSON) or Download Summary (CSV), and avall.zip is a plain download. The Aviation API on developer.ntsb.gov needs an account and the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header.
How fresh is the data?
The monthly aviation accident lists are updated daily. avall.zip is refreshed monthly, with weekly change files named up01, up08, up15 and up22 for each month. CAROL searches run against the current database, whose build date the site shows.
What happens to the MDB downloads?
The avdata page says that on April 5, 2027 the NTSB will transition the downloadable aviation dataset to the Enterprise API platform and encourages use of the GetCasesByDateRangeV2 API for large date-range and bulk retrieval.
Ask about NTSB CAROL

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by National Transportation Safety Board (data.ntsb.gov, developer.ntsb.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy