National Transportation Safety Board federal obligations

Investigations versus the $81.9 million award ledger

NTSB probable-cause reports are the agency’s public product. USAspending awards are not. $81,864,654.36 through FY2026 is what the Board obligated on federal awards—laboratories, wreckage storage, IT, training, facilities, and other instruments tagged to CGAC 424. A year with more major investigations does not automatically raise this total. A lab-equipment vehicle can raise it in a quiet accident year.

Three hundred forty-five awards against $81.9 million implies about $237,289 per award. That mid mean on a mid count fits an investigative body that buys technical support in many modest instruments rather than one giant operations contract. The packet has no median and no split by transportation mode.

Accident data lives in NTSB databases, not here

Aviation accident dockets, highway crash reports, and marine casualty files are NTSB (and sister-agency) statistical systems. They are not the 345 USAspending rows. Mixing fatalities with obligation dollars would treat a vendor invoice as if it were a safety outcome.

Investigator salaries generally never appear as awards. The $81,864,654.36 understates the Board’s full operating cost if a reader expected the award file to equal the appropriation. It is complete as an award ledger.

FY2026 cutoff and go-team logistics

Fiscal year 2026 is the latest year on the packet. The $81,864,654.36 is cumulative through that horizon. Rapid-deployment and laboratory contracts can be multi-year and remain in the running total until closed. This is not the NTSB’s FY2026 appropriation by itself.

Outlays are unpublished. Wreckage-storage or lab awards can be obligated before invoices are paid. Treat the figure as commitments for awarding agency 424.

CGAC 424

NTSB rows use awarding-agency code 424. The Department of Transportation, FAA, FRA, and Coast Guard are separate CGACs. A modal administration’s safety-grant dollars are not inside these 345 awards even when NTSB investigators work the same crash. SpendingVault’s /agencies/424/ path stays on the Board. Code 424 is an identifier, not an accident docket number.

State tables and accident geography

The state table for agency 424 attributes the 345 awards using USAspending location fields. That map is vendor and performance geography, not a heat map of accidents. A large state share can be headquarters support or a lab contractor, not a claim that that state has more crashes.

Open the NTSB agency page for the live $81,864,654.36 and 345-award filters. Use the all-agencies directory to find CGAC 424. Dollar rank among independents is not a ranking of transportation risk.

Go-teams, labs, and accident geography versus 345 awards

NTSB go-teams deploy to accident sites. Those deployments are not automatically USAspending awards. Laboratory analysis, wreckage storage, and training contracts can sit among the 345 rows. A year with a major aviation accident can leave $81,864,654.36 unchanged if the extra work is done by staff. A lab-equipment vehicle can move it in a quiet accident year.

The state table for agency 424 is vendor and performance geography, not a heat map of crashes. A large share in one state can be a headquarters lab contractor. Accident coordinates live in NTSB dockets. This packet has no accident field, so this prose does not invent one.

Investigator salaries generally never appear among the 345 awards, so the $81.9 million understates full operating cost. FY2026 is the cutoff, not a modal-safety rule effective date. Use the NTSB agency page for live tables. Keep CGAC 424 unmerged with DOT modal administrations. Outlays on wreckage-storage and lab awards can lag the obligation stock.

Modal breakouts—aviation, rail, highway, marine, pipeline—are how NTSB organizes investigations. They are not how this packet organizes the 345 awards. The $81,864,654.36 is unsplit. A reader who wants only aviation-lab support must filter award-level records, if NAICS or description fields support it. This prose will not invent a modal table. Use the NTSB agency page for live CGAC 424 totals. Accident locations remain in investigation files, not in the state award map.

Training academies and wreckage-storage sites can pin geography on the agency 424 state table without being accident sites. The 345 awards total $81,864,654.36 through FY2026. This page will not relabel those pins. Open award-level records for recipient names and NAICS. Use the NTSB agency page for live CGAC 424 filters. Investigator payroll remains mostly outside the award file, so the table understates full operating cost.

Questions

How much has the NTSB obligated on USAspending?

The National Transportation Safety Board shows $81,864,654.36 in obligations through FY2026 across 345 awards. Awarding-agency CGAC 424 is the filter. The total is not a count of accident investigations. USAspending.gov records this as awarding-agency obligations through FY2026, not cash outlays. The live table for CGAC 424 is the source for the current 345-award book.

What is the average NTSB award?

Dividing $81,864,654.36 by 345 awards yields about $237,289. The packet has no median and no split by aviation, rail, highway, marine, or pipeline support. Technical and administrative instruments share the same mean. That figure uses only the packet totals. The extract has no median and no contract-versus-assistance split. FY2026 is the warehouse cutoff, not a single-year appropriation.

What is agency code 424?

424 is the USAspending awarding-agency CGAC identifier for the NTSB. SpendingVault uses it in /agencies/424/. DOT modal administrations use different codes and different award books. SpendingVault URLs under the agency path filter to that CGAC identifier. It is an accounting tag, not a quality score. Totals on this page are obligations through FY2026.

Does the state table show where accidents happened?

No. The state table for agency 424 shows USAspending geography on the 345 awards—recipient or place-of-performance fields. Accident locations live in NTSB investigation files, not in this obligation roll-up. Outlays are unpublished in this packet, so this page does not estimate cash already paid. Refresh the agency page after USAspending updates rather than treating the current stock as frozen.