Comments Filed at Home and Abroad

July 6, 2013 by Leave a comment

ASA continues to work diligently to promote and promote and protect its members’ interests both at home and abroad. In the past month ASA has filed comments on a proposed rule change by NASA, as well as a Notice of Proposed Amendment with EASA.

On June 17, ASA filed comments with NASA regarding the proposed definition of “counterfeit goods” detailed in the proposed “NASA FAR Supplement Regulatory Review No. 1.”  The issue of counterfeit goods in aerospace and received a significant amount of attention in recent years.  As we have explained previously, efforts by Congress and the Administration to curtail the presence of counterfeit parts in the supply chain has the potential to impose significant burdens on distributors.

One way to mitigate that burden is to ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of what is—and more importantly, what is not—a counterfeit good.  ASA is working hard on multiple fronts to ensure that the definition of a counterfeit part remains concise, narrow, and legally accurate, to avoid imposing unnecessary and unhelpful burdens on the industry.

ASA also offered comments on EASA’s recent Part 145 NPA.  The objective of the sweeping NPA is to incorporate SMS principles into Part 145, and the proposed changes have the potential to touch not only repair stations, but also distributors and manufacturers.  ASA made numerous suggestions related to the various proposals in the hopes of assisting EASA in order to assist in a more gradual incorporation of these changes, as well as to address proposals that appeared to fall outside the scope of SMS.

ASA looks forward to working with these agencies to craft regulations that promote safety and benefit the industry.

 

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European SMS Proposal Will Likely Affect Distributors

January 21, 2013 by Leave a comment

An EASA safety management proposal has become a vehicle for a long list of changes to the EASA regulations – changes that could impact aircraft parts distributors all over the world.

EASA has issued a Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) that would integrate Safety Management Systems (SMS) into Part 145 maintenance organizations.  This NPA would represent a significant change to the language of Part 145.  The introduction to the rule change is 42 pages long, and the actual rule change is 142 pages long(!)  This rulemaking document is accompanied by a sister document that modifies Part M (continuing airworthiness organizations) and also a third  document that provides an explanation as well as a regulatory impact statement.  That is a total of 432 pages of rulemaking documentation for the integration of SMS into the EASA maintenance and continuing airworthiness regulations.

Despite the length (or perhaps because of it), the rule will bear attention by everyone in the aircraft parts distribution community.  In addition to integration of the traditional SMS elements, some of the areas where there are changes being made that will likely affect aircraft parts distributors include:

  • Standard parts
  • Raw materials and consumable parts
  • Traceability
  • Packaging requirements for parts and labeling requirements for the packaging
  • Control and disposition of unserviceable components
  • Return of data plates and serial numbers (for mutilated parts) to manufacturers

The proposal also appears to impose on Part 145 certain continuing airworthiness obligations that are traditionally delegated to Part M organizations.

EASA has asked for comments using the automated Comment-Response Tool (CRT).   The deadline for submission of comments is April 22, 2013.

References:

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Proposed Part 145 Could Eliminate Spot Repairs and Increase the Cost of Many Repairs

July 17, 2012 by Leave a comment

There are a number of problems with the FAA’s proposed revisions to the repair station rules.  One of those problems is that it could essentially do away with spot repairs.  As a matter of practice, it could require repair stations to overhaul parts every time they get them.  The reason for this is because of a subtle change in the quality system rules.

The current rule for those performing repairs is that they must ensure that the work performed is done correctly.  See 14 C.F.R. 43.9(a)(4) (signature constitutes approval for return to service only for the work performed).  But if their workscope does not encompass a finding of airworthiness for the entire article, then they do not need to also verify the airworthiness of the entire article.

I once represented a repair station that was asked to perform a simple alteration to a helicopter.  In their due diligence, they discovered that an AD was necessary for the rotorcraft.  When they called the owner, though, the owner said that they already had a contract with another repair station to have the AD work performed.  As a matter of their own due diligence and good record-keeping, they made a note that they had communicated to the owner that additional AD work was necessary before the rotorcraft flew.  An FAA inspector saw this note and brought an enforcement action against the repair station for failing to ensure that the entire rotorcraft was airworthy.  We were able to quickly get the enforcement action dismissed because the approval for return to service was limited only to the work accomplished, and not the work that was not described.  But this illustrates the issue –

Proposed 145.1211(a) would impose a burden on the repair station’s quality system to ensure the airworthiness of each article on which the repair station works.  Although based on existing quality system language, it could preclude spot repairs, and essentially require an overhaul in every component repair situation, in order to be able to ensure the airworthiness of the article.

§ 145.1211 Quality control system.

(a) A certificated repair station must establish and maintain a quality control system acceptable to the FAA that ensures the airworthiness of the articles on which the repair station or any of its contractors performs maintenance, preventive maintenance, or alterations.

Let’s look at this from a practical point of view.  A distributor has an overhauled avionics unit in their inventory.  The OEM issues a software upgrade.  The distributor wants to send the unit to a local avionics repair station for the sole purpose of installing the software upgrade.  The distributor does not want to pay for a complete overhaul of the unit, and a complete overhaul of the unit is not necessary.  But the local repair station performing the software upgrade would not be able to ensure the airworthiness of the component without performing a complete overhaul.  At first glance, this seems foolish, and some people might ask “why can’t the repair station simply rely on the approval for return to service from the earlier overhaul?”  The repair station is responsible for making its own findings.  The repair station is not automatically allowed to rely on the earlier approval for return to service because that sort of reliance would reflect a form of subcontracting (which is not permitted unless the task was approved in their subcontracting task list (14 C.F.R. 217(a)(1)) and the vendor is listed in their approved maintenance subcontracting vendor list (14 C.F.R. 217(a)(2))).

The proposed rule can be found at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-05-21/pdf/2012-11984.pdf

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FAA Releases Repair Station Rules

May 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

Today, the FAA issued a significant new proposed rule for repair stations.

The proposed rule would change the ratings system for repair stations. The following table comes from the new proposed rule, and it illustrates the proposed way that the ratings system is expected to changed.

Current Proposed
Airframe Class:

1. Composite Small

2. Composite Large

3. All-Metal Small

4. All-Metal Large

 

 Airframe Category:

1. Aircraft certificated under part 23 or 27.

2. Aircraft certificated under part 25 or 29.

3. All other aircraft.
Powerplant Class:

1. Reciprocating Engines of 400 HP or less.

2. Reciprocating Engines of more than 400 HP

3. Turbine Engines.

 Powerplant Category:

1. Reciprocating engines.

2. Turbine engines.

3. Auxiliary Power Units.

4. All other powerplants.

 
Propeller Class:

1. All Fixed and Ground-Adjustable

2. All other propellers.

 

 Propeller Category:

1. Fixed-pitch and ground-adjustable propellers.

2. Variable-pitch propellers.

3. All other propellers.

 
Radio Class:

1. Communication.

2. Navigation.

3. Radar.

 

 Component.
Instrument Class:

1. Mechanical.

2. Electrical.

3. Gyroscopic.

4. Electronic.

 

 Component.
Accessory Class:.

1. Mechanical.

2. Electrical.

3. Electronic.

 

 Component
Limited Rating Specialized Service.

 

 Specialized Service.
Limited Ratings (§ 145.61(b) lists 12 possible limited ratings). Eliminated.

 

The most significant difference is that FAA is proposing a new “Component” rating that would replace the Radio, Instrument, and Accessory ratings.

The proposed “Component” rating would allow repair stations to work components that are not installed on an airframe, powerplant, or propeller (bench work).  A repair station with a Component rating would be required to have an Airframe, Powerplant, or Propeller rating to install components or appliances. The FAA expects that such a product-level rating would be limited to only installation and removal.

The preamble to the rule states that the FAA expects that Component-rated repair stations would have a list of their components in their operations specifications.  In light of the difficulty now faced by some repair stations in amending their operations specifications, keeping the component list in the op specs would likely make it very difficult for a component repair station to add new components to their list of permissible components, which in turn would probably cause many smaller component shops to stagnate as new products come out but the operations specification amendment process limited their ability to add them as capabilities.

The FAA will accept public comments on the proposed rule through August 20, 2012.  Comments should reference FAA Docket Number “FAA–2006–26408.”

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