On May 16, the Certification Authorities for Bilateral Agreements and Certification Policy (CABA) met with industry representatives to discuss the latest policy initiatives affecting the four regulatory authorities (FAA, EASA, TCCA and ANAC) of the Certification Management Team (CMT). Several trade associations attended the meeting including ARSA (represented by its Managing Director & General Counsel Marshall Filler), GAMA, AEA, ASD, AIAC and AIAB. Various regulators specializing in certification policy matters from the four agencies also participated.
The CABA is one of the Certification Authority Groups (CAG) that reports to the CMT on certification policy and procedures. In contrast, the product-specific CAGs focus on the applicable airworthiness standards, guidance and policy pertaining to particular kinds of type-certificated products.
Notwithstanding the current political climate and concerns raised about the FAA’s delegation system in the wake of the 737 MAX 8 accidents, industry urged the authorities to continue making progress to effectively implement CMT strategy to bolster maintenance of interagency confidence and implement risk-based validation principles. Essential to accomplishing these objectives is the development of criteria and guidance for managing safety emphasis items (SEI) and the need for effective scalable processes to manage work plans for non-basic projects. A workplan defines the level of involvement by the Validating Authority (VA) whereas basic projects can either be accepted outright by the VA or are handled by a streamlined validation process (i.e., no technical involvement by the VA).
Generally, the more SEIs the greater the level of involvement by the VA. The current efforts are all about balancing a civil aviation’s authority’s legal right to make its own findings of compliance with the safety value of conducting another technical assessment. The belief among industry and the CMT members is the authorities can continue reducing the number of redundant technical determinations in the certification arena by applying risk-based, systems safety principles.
September 27, 2017
The four civil aviation authorities that comprise the Certification Management Team (CMT) – the FAA, EASA, ANAC and Transport Canada – held their semi-annual meeting in Ottawa, Canada the week of Sept. 18, 2017. The CMT discussed the next steps in the quadrilateral group’s efforts to reduce the amount of technical and administrative redundancy between and among their agencies as it relates to certification projects. As is customary since the CMT was established eight years ago, Sept. 22 was dedicated to an “Industry Day” for government and business representatives.
International oversight redundancy is built into the ICAO legal structure established at the end World War II by the Convention on International Civil Aviation, better known as the Chicago Convention of 1944. The convention and its annexes (which contain Standards and Recommended Practices) vest in the State of Registry the responsibility for airworthiness and continued airworthiness, among other things. As a result, applicants for and holders of type certificates seeking to sell their products to customers in foreign countries must have those type certificates validated by the State of Registry. Such validation can take the form of acceptance without any further action, streamlined validation (administrative issuance of a certificate or approval without technical involvement) or technical involvement by the validating authority.
For example, in Rev. 5 to the FAA-EASA Technical Implementation Procedures (TIP), the two agencies agreed that except for a small number of TSOA articles, each would mutually accept each other’s (E)TSOAs without any involvement by the validating authority, subject to the conditions in the agreement. On Sept. 22, TIP Rev. 6 was signed expanding mutual reciprocity to include the TSOA’d articles previously excepted. Therefore, on or about March 22, 2018 (the day TIP Rev. 6 will enter into force), all TSOA articles will be mutually accepted (i.e., without either administrative or technical involvement by the validating authority), subject to the provisions of the TIP. Similar (but somewhat different) TSOA reciprocity provisions exist in other bilateral agreements among CMT members, ( see TIP Rev. 3 signed by EASA and Transport Canada on Sept. 18, 2017 and Rev. 2 to the FAA-Transport Canada IPA, signed Nov. 10, 2016).
In addition, and of particular interest to ARSA members, TIP Rev. 6 also provides for the mutual acceptance of all repair data. Some ARSA members may remember when EASA was established in 2003 it decided to approve all repair data on its State of Registry articles, even if the data had been approved by the FAA. ARSA was instrumental in persuading EASA that this was impractical and unnecessary. EASA and the FAA agreed shortly thereafter to mutually accept all repair data except that used on critical parts developed by an entity other than the EASA type or supplemental type certificate holder. TIP Rev. 6 eliminates the need for the State of Registry to approve repair data on critical parts developed independent of the TC/STC holder provided the data has been approved by the exporting authority.
To review all of TIP Rev. 6, click here.
