http://cbs2chicago.com/seenon/local_...012111942.html
Small Piece Of Airplane Crashes Through Roof
Pamela Jones reports the FAA issued a statement saying
the piece is a turbine wheel from the engine of a multi-engine aircraft. They say it's registered to a firm called American Check Transport - outfitted for cargo.
http://www.cio.com/article/26826/RFID_Tags_Take_Flight_at_Boeing_Airbus
Porad said before Boeing started using RFID tags, ground crew members had to
inspect parts and check serial numbers visually. To find out when a certain part was last inspected, personnel had to look up written records.
In the pre-RFID days, he said,
Boeing used to stamp numbers onto steel plates that were affixed to parts. This proved to be expensive in the long run because new plates had to be produced when part numbers changed.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3720/is_199707/ai_n8767747
The tail number tells us a few things about the plane. If it begins with an N, it is registered in the United States. Then we can check its background in federal databases. If it begins with a C, it is Canadian; G is for the United Kingdom, and so on. But after that, the numbers and letters hold less meaning. They may be unique to that plane at that time, but another plane several years earlier may have had that same number. It's analogous to car license plates. The trick is to parlay a tail number into an aircraft serial number. This can be done by checking an airplane registration database.
The serial number is like a plane's social security number. Among other things, the serial number can be checked against maintenance records.