tensorust/aircraft-owner-trusts-sample

Aircraft Held in Owner Trusts: free sample (Tensorust LLC)

9,219 US aircraft registered to a corporate trustee, so the FAA registry hides who really owns or flies them.

Headline: The FAA registry names the trustee, not the beneficial owner, for every aircraft held in an owner trust, the structure non-US citizens and lessors use to put aircraft on the US register.

This repository is a free teaser, not the dataset. It holds 25 example rows and a summary table with no names in it. The full file has 9,219 rows and is sold by Tensorust LLC: https://tensorust.com/datasets/aircraft-owner-trusts/.

Files here

file	what it is
sample.csv	25 rows of the full file (the same sample shown on tensorust.com)
summary_by_registrant_state.csv	row counts by registrant state across the full file, no entity names (groups with fewer than 3 rows are folded into "Other")

Summary by registrant state (largest groups)

Registrant state	rows
UT	4,103
DE	1,814
NV	635
WY	624
OK	473
(blank)	443
GA	303
NM	300
VA	111
KS	97
WA	76
MD	54
TOTAL	9,219

Full table: summary_by_registrant_state.csv.

What the full file has

• 9,219 rows
• Key fields: n_number, serial_number, manufacturer, model, year_mfr, aircraft_type, engine_type, engines, seats, weight_class
• Parquet and CSV, a README with sources, method and limits, and the build script
• Free 25-row sample (no personal contact data)

Coverage: All current US registrations whose registrant name names a trustee institution (9,219 aircraft). Individual, family, revocable and estate trusts are excluded. FAA Releasable Aircraft Database files dated Nov 4 2026; built Nov 6 2026.

Columns in the full file

column	meaning
n_number	FAA N-number
serial_number	Manufacturer serial number
manufacturer	Manufacturer (ACFTREF)
model	Model (ACFTREF)
year_mfr	Year manufactured
aircraft_type	FAA aircraft type (fixed wing single or multi engine, rotorcraft and others)
engine_type	FAA engine type
engines	Number of engines
seats	Seats
weight_class	FAA weight class
registrant_name	Registered owner as recorded by the FAA
trustee	Normalized trustee institution
registrant_city	Registrant city
registrant_state	Registrant state
registrant_country	Registrant country code
type_registrant	FAA registrant type code
certificate_issue_date	Registration certificate issue date
registration_expiration	Registration expiration date
expires_within_12m	Registration expires within 12 months of the build
last_action_date	Date of the FAA's last action on the record
status_code	FAA registration status code
fractional_owner	FAA fractional ownership flag
airworthiness_date	Airworthiness certificate date
mode_s_hex	Mode S transponder code (hex) for ADS-B tracking
turbine	True for turbine (turbo-prop, turbo-shaft, turbo-jet, turbo-fan) engines
ontology_aircraft_id	Tensorust Ontology Aircraft id
in_prior_bank_of_utah_list	Also in the Nov 2026 Bank of Utah working list

Get the full file

tier	price	includes
Trustee or fleet slice	$750	Every aircraft under one trustee (for example Bank of Utah, 1,857) or one weight class, with make, model, serial, Mode S code, expiry and ontology ids. CSV and Excel.
National trust file	$2,500	All 9,219 trust-registered aircraft with the trustee rollup, CSV and Parquet.
Yearly license with monthly refresh	$6,000 a year	The national file rebuilt each month from the FAA release, new and removed trust registrations flagged, for lender, insurer or compliance teams. Internal use, unlimited seats.

Email mattbusel@tensorust.com with the tier and a billing contact, and we will send a proper invoice (ACH or card). The file is delivered once the invoice is paid. Details and the live sample: https://tensorust.com/datasets/aircraft-owner-trusts/. All datasets: https://tensorust.com/datasets/

Method and limits

Read MASTER and join ACFTREF for make, model, weight class and seats. Keep registrants whose name contains TRUSTEE (or owner trust) and an institution marker (BANK, TRUST CO, CORP, INC, LLC, N.A.). Drop revocable, living, family and estate trusts. Normalize the trustee institution.

Not the beneficial owner: the registry does not name trustors; that is the gap this dataset maps. Not an export-control or sanctions finding. No individuals: personal trusts are excluded.

Sources

• FAA Releasable Aircraft Database (https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip), files dated Nov 4 2026: MASTER and ACFTREF
• Tensorust Bank of Utah working list, Nov 2026 (internal cross-check only)

License

The sample and summary here are free to view, analyze and cite with attribution to "Tensorust LLC, https://tensorust.com/datasets/aircraft-owner-trusts/". The full dataset is licensed separately per tier. No resale or redistribution of Tensorust data without a written license.

Tensorust LLC, Tuckahoe NY. mattbusel@tensorust.com | https://tensorust.com