Ntsb Investigations

What Ntsb Investigations does

Ntsb Investigations exposes searchable NTSB aviation accident and incident data through MCP. It covers aircraft investigations across manufacturers and can locate records using a registration number, make, model, event year, state, injury severity, or a date range.

Results can include the NTSB case number, event date, location, injury level, phase or occurrence, probable cause, findings, and a link to the corresponding NTSB docket. Registration searches preserve historical matches when an FAA tail number has been reassigned; each returned case retains its own aircraft and event details.

The integration is independent and unofficial. Its source data comes from NTSB's public eADMS aviation bulk dataset, while docket links point to NTSB's public docket pages.

How it works

The MCP endpoint is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ntsb-investigations/mcp. Add that URL to an MCP client and invoke either search tool through the client interface. Authentication is not required, and no upstream NTSB account or API key is needed.

The underlying dataset is refreshed from NTSB's avall.zip bulk file. The refresh process extracts selected Access database tables, combines aircraft, event, narrative, findings, sequence, and data-dictionary records into case-oriented data, and stores indexes by make, registration, and year. Queries then read the relevant shard or year shards instead of processing the entire source file for every request.

Responses include metadata such as the source, record count, query details, and the date of the data refresh. That data_as_of value identifies the refresh date rather than an individual record's publication or event date.

Setup and configuration

Register the endpoint in an MCP client with a configuration similar to:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ntsb-investigations": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ntsb-investigations/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The endpoint can be added to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf. No environment variables, credentials, or client-side API keys are needed for the documented connection.

Tools and capabilities

• ntsb_search_investigations searches by registration or make, with optional model, year, state, injury_level, and limit filters. A model filter narrows within a make using prefix matching, so values such as 172 can match related model variants.
• ntsb_accidents_by_period searches across all aircraft makes using inclusive from and optional to dates. Dates accept year, year-month, or full-date formats and can be filtered by state and injury level.
• Period searches return results, a match count, truncation status, and counts grouped by state. The state grouping covers all matches even when the result list is limited.
• Search results can link an investigation to its NTSB docket, where final reports and supporting documents are published.

Limitations and notes

ntsb_search_investigations requires either a registration or a make. A reused registration may return multiple aircraft histories; provide a year when a particular incarnation is needed.

Some broad makes are split across yearly data shards. Queries for those makes without a model or year may be rejected when they would require too many shard reads; adding a year or more specific make/model query narrows the request.

ntsb_accidents_by_period accepts ranges spanning no more than eight calendar years. It reads one year index per calendar year, then applies state and injury filters. Narrow a longer request before submitting it.

The endpoint also exposes shared Pipeworx gateway tools in addition to the two NTSB-specific tools, so an MCP client may display more tools than those listed here.