What happens to the log books of scrapped aircraft?

trashed

 

Is that "by rule" (of the FAA?) or just the way it's done? Seems an awful shame to throw away what I assume is a pretty detailed, and probably interesting, piece of history.

I had an old passport returned with the new one - They just clipped the top right corner away. Would have thought something similar could be done here, no?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Ultimately, I think they get tossed.

However, most aircraft which are "scrapped" are actually parted out first. Logbooks for airplanes are in several parts-- there is the airframe log, which is probably what you are referring to, there are logbooks for the engines, and for the propellers. In addition, there are usually a box or two of yellow tags, for the purpose of tracking the source of various parts.

Engine and prop logbooks, and yellow tags, all follow their respective parts. Sometimes the yellow tags are actually stapled in the airframe logbook, so if I were parting out an airplane, I wouldn't trash the airframe logbook until I was done parting it out and ready to send it to the smelter. At that point, I'd toss it.

I've delivered at least one airplane to the recycler, but I honestly can't remember if we brought the logs with us or not. I'm pretty sure we did, because I think it was treated just like any other airplane sale.