§249.21. Preservation of records by public charter operators and overseas military personnel charter operators. — Inbound Citations

(a) All records listed in §§ 249.20 and 249.21 may be preserved on either paper or nonerasable microfilm (see § 249.4). However, a paper or microfilm record need not be created to satisfy the requirements of this part if the record is initially prepared in a machine-readable medium such as punched cards, magnetic tapes, and disks. The records maintained in machine-readable media and the underlying data used in their preparation shall be preserved for the periods prescribed in §§ 249.20 and 249.21. A paper or microfilm record shall not be destroyed after transfer to a machine-readable medium before expiration of the prescribed period: however, a waiver permitting the early destruction of paper or microfilm records transferred to a machine-readable medium may be granted by the Director, Office of Airline Information, when it is demonstrated by the requesting carrier that the substantive purpose of the retention requirement will be met by retention of the information in machine-readable form (see § 249.10).

(b) The microfilm shall be of a quality that can be easily read and that can be reproduced in paper similar in size to an original without loss of clarity or detail during the periods the records are required to be retained in §§ 249.20 and 249.21.