Avionics News February 2014 - 18

INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Continued from page 17

Stakeholders expressed:
* The need for better efficiency in the process;
to have a rulemaking process that is more
nimble, responsive and efficient to address
safety priorities.
* The desire to address current backlog of NPAs;
the desire to have industry more involved at an
earlier time in the process.
* To have a better prioritization of issues;
have better consistency in the preparation of
documents.
* To maintain the face-to-face meetings for
complex and crucial issues.
What resulted was a complete overhaul to the
process and, subsequently, the CARAC Charter.
The new process starts with TCCA receiving input
from a variety of sources, both external and internal,
and then carrying out a review to prioritize the
actions. A validation of the prioritization and direction
is then completed with external stakeholders. At
this point, the issues enter the CARAC body and
a preliminary issue and consultation assessment is
completed with internal and external stakeholders.
The group involved in the PICA define the issue
through data review, determine the need for a focus
group (to refine the issue and make proposals) and
then determine the post-NPA issuance consultation
stream. There are three consultations streams: Low
impact, which allows for online shared review,
pre-publication in Gazette I is optional. Medium
impact that allows for online shared review and prepublication in Gazette I is required, which includes
a comment period. High impact, which is the same
as medium impact, but a special technical committee
would be formed, as well.
Once the PICA is completed, a draft regulation
or standard is developed and moves through the
focus group (as required) and a CARAC validation
prior to going to the NPA process. One other
aspect to the changes is the simplified process
for certain airworthiness standards. If a new (or
revised) rule or standard is issued by the Federal
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avionics news

february

2014

Aviation Administration, the European Aviation
Safety Agency or the International Civil Aviation
Organization, TCCA has the option to adopt these by
reference and move to the NPA process quickly with
a 30-day consultation period.
The real benefit seen in this change to the CARAC
process is the increase in external consultations
all through the process and TCCA's commitment
to the new process. Essentially, no new regulation
or standard (or change to) will be done without
effective external consultation. You can review
information regarding the changes to the CARAC
process at http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/
npa-apm/actr.aspx?id=5&aType=2&lang=eng.
The CARAC review team also reviewed the
backlog of NPAs. It was identified that there are 923
individual NPAs in the system. Of these, 179 are
in legal drafting, 59 were deemed high priority, 77
required further reviews by TCCA, 194 were deemed
low to medium priority and 145 are to be withdrawn.
The 59 deemed high priority will be handled
through the new CARAC process. This means that a
PICA will be completed for each one or each group of
related NPAs. Those not are the NPAs related to SMS
for 702, 703 and 704 AMOs and the NPAs relating
to CAR 521. At this time, TCCA is reviewing the
SMS NPAs to determine a direction internally prior
to going to a PICA.
A PICA for CAR 521 will begin in early 2014 and
will be the first change to a regulation to go through
the new process. This discussion around the changes
to CAR 521 should prove to be lively, as there has
been considerable contention on the application of
CAR 521 since its introduction in 2009.
AEA members are encouraged to participate in the
CARAC process to ensure their concerns are heard.
Please send your concerns, ideas and comments
to the AEA via email at ricp@aea.net so that the
association can represent you in the discussions.
TCCA is updating the website to allow for an easier
method to see what activities are occurring and to
find the details.
All information relating to CARAC activities can
be found at http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/
npa-apm/crs.aspx.
This site is in development, and more data will be
added during the next few months.

http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/npa-apm/actr.aspx?id=5&aType=2&lang=eng http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/npa-apm/actr.aspx?id=5&aType=2&lang=eng http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/npa-apm/crs.aspx http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/npa-apm/crs.aspx

Avionics News February 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News February 2014