Aviation Week & Space Technology - 3 November 2014

nautical Repair Station Association

(ARSA) and including Airlines For

America, Aerospace Industries Asso-

ciation, Cargo Airline Association, Na-

tional Air Carrier Association, Aircraft

Electronics Association, National Air

Transport Association, and National

Business Aviation Association—see

things diferently.

The term “serious,” they pointed out

in a Sept. 23 petition to the agency, was

reintroduced into Part 145 via a 2003

rule change, and was based on specific

industry feedback supporting the move.

The associations even cite the FAA’s

own reasoning behind the 2003 re-

introduction of “serious” into the rule.

“[I]t was not FAA’s intent to require

repair stations to report all failures,

malfunctions, and defects,” the safety

agency wrote in 2003, the petition

notes. “Therefore, FAA is reinsert-

ing the word ‘serious’ before the word

‘failure,’” the agency explained at that

time.

The associations argue that the ra-

tionale for specifying that only serious

flaws require SDRs is just as valid to-

day as it was a decade ago.

“The burden of reporting ‘any fail-

ure, malfunction or defect’ is as costly

today as when the original removal of

the word was contemplated,” the as-

sociations aver. “Articles come to re-

pair stations because of those stated

conditions; without the word ‘serious’

all items received for work would have

to be reported under the rule.”

The associations note that the costs

of ramping up SDR reporting would be

“incalculable,” and the safety benefit

would be minimal. “It would merely

inundate the agency’s database.”

The petition calls on FAA to issue a

direct final rule emphasizing that only

serious defects require SDRs. The “di-

rect final rule” approach, which the as-

sociations say is an option because it is

“in the public interest” to act quickly,

would not require public comment be-

fore being put into place.

The FAA in early October opened

the petition up for public comment.

Among those weighing in was Avia-

tion Technical Services (ATS), which

illustrated the potential ramifications

of the new requirement.

“During scheduled

checks on aircraft, we

identify many discrepan-

cies that are not serious,

i.e. chipped paint, debris

in seat tracks, torn seat

covers, etc. With the rule

change, we will now be

obligated to report these

to the FAA,” ATS noted.

“For us, this will result in

the additional burden of

filling out literally thou-

sands of reports a year

which were not required

previously.”

It is not clear whether

the FAA is preparing to

take action by the Nov. 10

effective date of the new

regulations. Also unclear

are ramifications of the

new rule’s language if a fix is not put

into place until after the new rules are

in. Because enforcement of the repair

station regulations is done at the Flight

Standards District Ofce (FSDO) level,

it is conceivable that diferent interpre-

tations could be put into place, mean-

ing some repair stations could be

required to report based on the new

rule’s requirements, while others will

maintain the status quo.

“This is why we scrutinize the rules,”

says ARSA Executive Director Sarah

MacLeod. “One misplaced or misused

word can cause a whole lot of trouble

for repair stations, their customers

and—in the end—the flying public.

[T]he agency has the opportunity to

quickly make things right.” c

—Sean Broderick

Washington

Serious Business

Word has it that the FAA is working on

a fix to what a group of trade associa-

tions say was a major change to the re-

cently issued revamp of repair station

rules that, if followed verbatim, would

cause service difculty report (SDR)

volumes to swell unnecessarily.

The problem stems from the FAA’s

removal of the word “serious” from a

section of the regulation that requires

repair stations to report failures, mal-

functions or defects via SDRs. The re-

vamped rules, which go into force Nov.

10, are much less sweeping than what

the safety agency proposed in its 2012

draft rule. Among the pro-

posed changes dropped in

the final rule: a ratings sys-

tem revamp.

But one change that

made it in is a seven-letter

alteration of the language

in Part 145.221, clarifying

that a repair station “must

report to the FAA within

96 hr. after it discovers

any failure, malfunction,

or defect of an article.” The

previous rule included the

word “serious” between

“any” and “failure.”

Most troubling to indus-

try is that the change was

not included in the draft

version released for pub-

lic comment in 2012 that

generated 250 comments.

Those comments helped convince the

FAA to scale back the final rule.

The agency in the final rule’s pream-

ble maintains that the change corrects

what amounts to a clerical mistake

made in 2000, when “serious” was in-

advertently added to the rule’s language

as part of another rules modification.

“The removal of the term ‘serious’

... does not change a standard, nor
will there be any efect on regulated
entities other than to prevent future
misunderstandings that would have
been resolved when interested per-
sons contacted the FAA,” the agency
explained. “Accordingly, due to the
nature and circumstances of the er-
ror explained above, the FAA finds
that further notice and comment are
unnecessary to efect the correction.”
The associations—led by the Aero-

Safety & Regulatory News

MRO38 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY MRO EDITION NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/mro

MRO Edition

AAR

The removal of one word from its latest repair station

rules threatens to add significant burden to repair-station

reporting requirements, industry says.

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