A logbook is a critical part of a pilot’s record of their training, professional progression, and to some degree, life. There are so many horror stories of lost and damaged logbooks.

I can’t stress enough how important it is for someone to have backups of their logbooks. Have digital, have copies, take pictures and save them in a Dropbox or Google Drive, something. Have a backup in case your primary logbook gets destroyed or lost in any way.

With that said, while it wasn’t probably entertaining or funny for those that had it happen, there are a few over my career I have had happen to people I knew or students that exemplify just how easy it can be for a logbook to go missing or get destroyed. I share them here as examples to prove the point, and in some ways, to entertain the rest of us from their pain.

It got stolen out of my car.

An unfortunately common occurrence. Imagine that flight bag in the back seat of your car when you stop somewhere on the way to or from the airport. In that bag is typically a couple of items that are highly saleable on the internet. This probably includes your iPad or headset.

Your logbook? Well, that’s just trash that gets tossed in this situation. It is collateral damage and worthless to the would-be thief. It probably gets thrown away in a random dumpster never to be returned, while Criminal X makes a coupl ofe hundred dollars on eBay from your other stuff.

In one case, it wasn’t a car, but a flight instructor who worked for me had his logbook stolen as a part of the overall disappearance of his flight bag from an airport at which he stopped on a trip. He never got the logbook back. He spent hours and hours recreating as much time as he could, calling previous training providers, aircraft rental providers, his students, and anyone with whom he had flown over the years. He did the best he could, but still ended up literally losing hundreds of hours of flight time was not able to recreate or document. Those were hours that could have moved him forward for jobs sooner if he had not lost them.

My dog ate it.

Yup. It has happened. Multiple times. Puppies especially. And, not to stereotype, but Labrador retriever puppies seem to be the most common offenders from stories I have been given. But I digress. It is still gone if your dog chews it up.

Be sure to put that logbook where your favorite furry friend can’t get to it.

It got lost in a move.

This happens to be one of the most common reasons for loss in my experience. It happens commonly to pilots who started training once, might have gotten their private pilot certificate, then took a break from flying for reasons such as raising a family before coming back to flying. Having a backup option, or multiple options, can help remedy the re-starting point confusion that comes with not having a previous logbook to use as a starting point.

The Disgruntled “X”

In a painful example of a grumpy x-significant other, a customer of mine once got a video sent to him in his email of his soon-to-be x-wife burning his logbook to “punish him”! Ouch.

It wasn’t overly smart on her part, either, because a logbook is technically considered a federal document. This fact got brought up in their final divorce proceedings, discussing how that was technically a crime and how it could potentially be chargeable, and the civil lawsuit potential for “career damage” due to inability to proceed without documentable pilot experience. I don’t know exactly how all that played out, but it couldn’t have been fun.

Fortunately in this case the customer had taken advantage of some good advice and had made copies of his logbook. This made recreation of his logbook MUCH easier.

The open sun roof.

Another favorite storm from the previous customer files was a logbook left in the center console of his car with the sunroof open.

It rained.

The logbook got wet, then it was hot, and the logbook swelled up like a big ball of mush, never to be made readable again. Fortunately, he wasn’t too far into his training as a student pilot and his instructor was able to recreate a new logbook with a little work.

When it comes to being a pilot, especially one planning a career in aviation, a logbook is a critical document. It documents employment eligibility, currency, or eligibility for future pilot certificates and ratings. Losing this record can require, in the worst of circumstances, pilots to re-do experience requirements if they can no longer prove that they had been previously obtained. In better circumstances, it can result in hours of work calling previous rental aircraft providers, students, or instructors to re-document flight experience, endorsements, or training requirements.

Hopefully it never happens to you, but if it does, having a backup will be a saving grace. When a pilot has backups, it just takes recreating a logbook from backup documents.