Mutual Acceptance of European and US TSOA Components is on the Horizon

The US and Europe are investigating how to accomplish mutual acceptance of TSOAs and ETSOAs. This could be a huge advance for the aviation community, that could save both industry and government resources.  It also would be great for US parts distributors handling TSOA articles, because it would make it easier to sell these articles into both markets.

The current US-EU Bilateral Airworthiness Safety Agreement (BASA) Technical Implementation Procedures (TIP) allows the FAA and EASA to each issue a TSOA/ETSOA in reliance on certain assurances by the other authority, following certain validation processes by the second authority.  The way that it works is that an authorization holder on one side of the Atlantic applies through its own airworthiness authority for the corollary approval on the other side of the Atlantic.  The application is reviewed by the first airworthiness authority and then forwarded to the second authority for validation.  Once the validation is granted, the article would be marked for both approvals.

But what if you didn’t need two approvals and two markings?  What if you could get one authorization from one authority and it was good for sales into both jurisdictions (US and EU)?

The authorities have announced a plan to mutually accept technical standard order articles from the other jurisdiction. Under this plan the validation process would no longer be necessary (saving both applicant and authority resources). This is a sign that the FAA and EASA have progressed to a point of mutual trust in the TSO authorization process.

The mutual acceptance will not happen overnight. It is part of a lengthy process that began with TSO-ETSO harmonization, and that has involved significant coordination among the authorities. But once it is complete it means that receiving inspectors and installers will have to get used to the idea that approved TSO parts are coming from both the US and Europe, without the intermediate step of validation.