Airworthiness, continuing airworthiness and defect/occurrence reporting
What this domain tests
Airworthiness and continuing airworthiness are about keeping an aircraft legally fit to fly throughout its life. The exam tests airworthiness certificates, ADs, maintenance programmes, defect control and mandatory occurrence reporting.
Core rules and concepts
- An aircraft flies on a valid airworthiness certificate, within its approved configuration and any operating limitations. Continuing airworthiness is maintained through inspections, maintenance programmes, airworthiness directives (ADs) and defect rectification.
- ADs are mandatory. Compliance must be recorded and completed within the required time or cycle; a service bulletin is generally not mandatory unless made so by an AD, the maintenance programme or an operator requirement.
- Defects must be assessed and controlled. A defect that affects airworthiness must be rectified before flight unless it can be deferred under an approved minimum equipment list (MEL) or other permitted deferral system with the required placards and procedures.
- Occurrence reporting is separate from routine defect recording. Accidents and specified incidents or notifiable occurrences must be reported to the CAA under Part 12 and the applicable notification requirements; the operator also has internal reporting duties.
- Maintenance programmes and reliability programmes support continuing airworthiness, especially for air transport operators under Parts 121/125/135.
Worked example
An AD requires inspection within 100 flight hours, and the aircraft has 95 hours since the last check. A 10-hour charter is planned. The AD limit would be exceeded during the flight, so the aircraft cannot be dispatched on that plan unless the AD is accomplished first or the flight is arranged within the remaining 5 hours and the AD is done before further flight. The reasoning is limit-based: you cannot plan to comply afterwards when the mandatory limit will be passed.
Traps
Treating all service bulletins as mandatory, deferring a defect without an approved MEL basis, and reporting only accidents while missing notifiable incidents. Another common error is recording AD compliance as done without the reference, date and signature.