Squawk Reporting

Report and track aircraft discrepancies with severity levels and photos.

Overview

Squawks are a way to report and track aircraft discrepancies — anything from a minor cosmetic issue to a grounding safety concern. 5-by-5 makes it easy to report squawks and ensures everyone stays informed.

Where Squawks Appear

Active squawks are visible in several places:

• Home dashboard — grounding squawks in the red banner, non-grounding squawks in the yellow squawks banner
• Maintenance screen — full list with open and resolved sections
• Flight cards — flights with associated squawks show a maintenance badge

Reporting a Squawk

You can report squawks in two ways:

From a Flight

When logging a flight, scroll to the Squawks section:

1. Tap Add Squawk
2. Describe the issue
3. Select the severity level
4. Optionally attach a photo (paid tiers only)

Standalone

From the Maintenance screen, you can add squawks that aren’t tied to a specific flight:

1. Scroll to the Squawks section at the bottom of the page
2. Tap the + button to add a new squawk
3. Fill in description, severity, and optional photo (paid tiers only)

Squawk Photos (Paid plans)

Paid plans (Solo and Club) can attach photos to squawk reports. This is especially useful for documenting visible issues like:

• Cracks or damage
• Fluid leaks
• Tire condition

Photos also make it easy to share the issue directly with your mechanic — a quick snapshot from the ramp is often worth more than a written description.

Free tier users can report squawks with text descriptions only.

Severity Levels

Each squawk is assigned one of three severity levels:

• Minor — cosmetic or non-urgent issues (e.g., a small scratch, worn seat fabric)
• Monitor — items to watch but not immediately grounding (e.g., slight oil seepage, intermittent avionics alert)
• Grounding — issues that make the aircraft unairworthy or unsafe to fly (e.g., flat tire, cracked windshield, engine vibration)

Grounding Alerts

When a squawk is marked Grounding, a bold red banner appears on every group member’s home dashboard showing:

• The total count of grounding squawks
• A description of each grounding issue

This ensures that no one flies the airplane while a grounding issue is active.

Resolving Squawks

When a squawk has been addressed:

1. Go to the Maintenance screen
2. Navigate to the Squawks section at the bottom of the page
3. Tap to expand the target squawk and select Mark Resolved
4. Add optional Resolution Notes describing how the issue was addressed
5. Attach an optional resolution photo (paid plans — Solo and Club)
6. Tap Save to complete the resolution

Resolved squawks can be viewed by tapping the View Resolved button next to the + icon.