Tail number lookup

Every mark resolved through this page is banked permanently and re-checked against the public register once a week. Entries are never removed — a record changes only when the register itself reports different details.

The prefix tells you which register holds the record. N is the United States, G- the United Kingdom, C- Canada, VT- India, HZ- Saudi Arabia, A6- the United Arab Emirates. Search the matching register first; only fall back to aggregators when the national register has no public search.

Aircraft also broadcast an ICAO 24-bit address — a six-character hex code such as a835af. That code is fixed to the airframe by the registering state, so it survives a change of tail number and is often the more reliable identifier when an owner re-registers an aircraft to obscure it.

A register entry names the registered owner. For business aviation that is very often a holding company, a trust or a management operator rather than the person who flies in the aircraft — an entirely legal and extremely common arrangement. Linking an airframe to an individual therefore needs a second source: corporate filings, court documents, photography with a date and place, or the operator's own disclosures.

Registers are also snapshots. They record the certificate as filed, not where the aircraft is today, and they lag sales by weeks. Treat a stale record as a lead, not a conclusion.

The same discipline applies to the wanted board. Any listing worth citing traces back to a published notice from an authority. These are the primary sources to check:

• INTERPOL Red Notices
• FBI Most Wanted
• Europol Most Wanted
• US OFAC sanctions search
• India NIA most wanted

A published notice records that an authority is seeking a person. It is not a conviction and not a determination of guilt, and notices are withdrawn without announcement when a case closes.

• N-number lookup — the US register in detail: how a mark is formatted, and the FAA inquiry that holds the certificate of record.
• How to track a private jet — the four-step method, from tail number to confirmed leg, and what it cannot prove.
• Browse the most wanted list — every tracked subject, grouped by region, each with its own dossier.
• Private jet tracker — tracked business-aviation airframes and the tail numbers behind them.
• How it works — which layers are sourced, which are modelled, and how confidence is scored.