Can an OEM part be an unapproved part? Absolutely! One of the advantages to PMA parts is that they are produced under an FAA-approved system, while in some cases the so-called OEM parts are not!
I was contacted by an airline about “OEM” articles the airline was trying to buy. The airline was frustrated because they could not obtain a desired 8130-3 for these articles. Upon further inspection, the articles were revealed to have been produced by a manufacturer that holds no PMAs and no TSOAs. It did not have an FAA-approved quality system. It did not hold direct-shipment authority from the production certificate holder. The aircraft is no longer in production by the TC/PC holder. The production certificate holder does not sell the articles in question. In this case they were sold directly by the so-called original equipment manufacturer (OEM), which was a US-based company.
The airline identified the OEM because it is listed in the illustrated parts catalog as the TC/PC holder’s source of the articles.
These were unapproved parts, in the sense that (1) they are produced by a company that supplied the parts to the TC/PC holder and thus knew or reasonably should have known that they were reasonably likely to be installed on a type certificated aircraft, and (2) the OEM did not hold FAA production approval, and did not appear to have met the standard to claim any of the exceptions to this production approval requirement under the FAA’s regulations.
The FAA’s regulations require that anyone that produces an aircraft article, and who knows, or should know, that the article is reasonably likely to be installed on a type-certificated product, must either have an FAA production approval, or must meet one of the FAA’s specific exceptions to that requirement. There is no exception in the US regulations for a supplier to the TC/PC holder, and being listed in the illustrated parts catalog does not exempt a manufacturer from the FAA’s production regulations.
There are other paths (“exception”) for the airline to obtain the articles (like structuring the transaction to characterize the articles as owner-operator produced parts), but the FAA has issued policy on all of these exceptions, so it is important to understand the conditions for claiming an exception before you seek to claim exception or exemption from the PMA requirements. Another business model could be a supplier to the production certificate holder who has direct shipment authority from the production certificate holder – in such a case, the supplier is producing under the supervision of the production certificate holder, and falls within the written parameters of the production certificate holder’s FAA-approved quality assurance system.
But ignoring these exceptions for a moment, the most fundamental manner for producing an aircraft article is for the producer to obtain PMA. A PMA is the FAA’s approval vehicle for approving the design and production quality system associated with an aircraft article, just as the type certificate and production certificate are the approval vehicles for complete aircraft, engine or propeller (a production certificate holder is also allowed to produce the replacement and modification parts associated with its product).
The fact that a company might be considered to be the OEM of a specific article doesn’t exempt the company from the requirement to get a PMA (or TSOA) for the article.
So the next time you are procuring an article for installation on a US type certificated aircraft, check whether the article is made under FAA production approval. If it wasn’t, then you should be looking for some other way to assure the airworthiness, consistent with the exceptions to the FAA’s regulations!
Discussion
No comments yet.