Avionics News February 2017 - 65

The high-level agreement explains that the U.S. and the EU
each have found that the other's civil aviation regulatory system
is compatible with its own. Based on this finding, the FAA and the
EASA are able to accept the approvals and findings of compliance
of the other party. This is not a broad and unfettered acceptance -
the terms of acceptance are detailed in the annexes.
This brings us to the annexes. There are two annexes that are
important for the purposes of this article: the Airworthiness Annex
and the Maintenance Annex.
The Airworthiness Annex establishes the standards that apply
when one jurisdiction wants to be able to accept the articles produced under the production approval of the other jurisdiction. So,
U.S. installers can accept EU-produced parts for installation into
U.S.-registered aircraft under the terms of the Airworthiness Annex.
The Maintenance Annex works a little bit differently. It does
not permit the U.S. and EU to automatically accept maintenance
performed under the jurisdiction of the other; instead, it permits
repair stations to obtain foreign repair station certification from
the foreign authority by applying through the domestic authority. A U.S. repair station can apply to the FAA in order to obtain
EASA 145 approval. Then, once that approval is granted, the
FAA provides the direct oversight of the U.S. repair station's
compliance with the standards necessary to retain the EASA 145
approval.
The standards that guide this FAA oversight audit are found in
the Maintenance Annex.
I have heard people in the repair station community suggest
that the FAA audits repair stations to the EASA regulations.
This is not accurate, because the FAA only audits to the special
conditions of the Maintenance Annex and not to all of the EASA
regulations.
The Maintenance Annex clarifies that a U.S. repair station
must meet three conditions to obtain a European repair station
certificate:
1. Compliance with the FAA repair station regulations.
2. Compliance with the EASA special conditions found in
the U.S./EU Maintenance Annex.
3. The FAA must recommend and endorse the repair station's application.
The FAA inspects for compliance to these standards; and these
are the only criteria: The FAA is not authorized, under the bilateral
agreement or under the U.S./EU Maintenance Annex, to inspect
for compliance to other European standards beyond the EASA
special conditions.
The list of EASA special conditions is important to an understanding of the relevant standards, because that list is the limit of

the additional EU criteria for FAA compliance investigation under
the U.S./EU Maintenance Annex. The U.S./EU Maintenance
Annex lists the EASA special conditions, and it also describes the
criteria under which requirements become special conditions. The
EASA special conditions each meet two criteria:
First, they are in the European regulations but not in the U.S.
regulations.
Second, they are "significant enough that they must be
addressed." Thus, the special conditions are differences that the
EU has decided are sufficiently important that they cannot merely
accept FAA compliance (alone) - they must also ensure compliance with these additional European criteria.
This means that differences that are not EASA special conditions have not been identified as significant enough to need to be
addressed (even though those additional differences may exist).
By limiting the special conditions only to "significant" items, the
FAA and the EASA have eliminated from consideration those
items that were not important - this elimination helps streamline
the dual-certification process.
The FAA and the EASA jointly publish a Maintenance Annex
Guidance document. Thus, Maintenance Annex Guidance is supposed to explain how the FAA and the EASA will work together
to implement the Maintenance Annex, and it is supposed to
explain the application process to the applicants.
The MAG is not an authorized method of amending the
Maintenance Annex. Thus, if you find inconsistencies between
the Maintenance Annex and the MAG, then the Maintenance
Annex "wins" such conflicts.
The foreign authority for dual-certificated repair stations must
be renewed periodically. Upon renewal, the criteria for qualifying
for renewal of a U.S. repair station's EASA 145 certificate continue to be limited to the FAA's own regulations and the EASA
special conditions. The repair station must allow the FAA (on
behalf of the EASA) to inspect it for continued compliance with
the requirements of the FAA's own Part 145 regulations and the
special conditions found in the Maintenance Annex.
For the more than 1,400 repair stations in the U.S. that also
hold EASA 145 approval, the Maintenance Annex is critically
important because it sets the additional standards to which the
U.S. repair station is audited, in order to earn and keep the EASA
145 approval. If you find yourself in a dispute over how to comply
with European standards, the Maintenance Annex should be your
first source of information. Then, you should be looking at other
resources to help you interpret the Maintenance Annex (like the
MAG, or the EASA regulations, advisory material and guidance
material). q
avionics news

february

2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News February 2017