The FAA has issued for comment a draft Advisory Circular focused on sample size for statistical analysis in PMA applications. As many of you remember, there was a draft on statistical analysis issued several years ago. MARPA objected to that draft because it implied that every PMA application needed to be based on statistical analysis, … Continue reading
The FAA has published for comment a draft Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (“TARAM”) Handbook. They have also published a corollary draft policy statement. Both are currently available for public review and comment. The two documents are meant to support risk assessment required by SMS rules, but (1) they are useful for performing risk assessment … Continue reading
What do you think Instructions for Continued Airworthiness are? MARPA is participating as a member of the Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICA) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). The ARC’s next task is to produce a short statement identifying what ICA are. There are many pages of the regulations and still more pages of FAA guidance material … Continue reading
The new Safety Management Systems (SMS) regulation will be published on Friday April 26. A pre-publication version of the rule is currently available for inspection. The new regulation will expand the applicability of FAA’s SMS rule to include type certificate (TC) holders and production certificate (PC) holders. It will also expand the scope to include … Continue reading
MARPA has filed formal comments on two recent rulemaking activities: SMS and Systems Safety. In both cases, the comments are intended to improve the rules and make them more useful to protect safety in the global aviation system. Continue reading
On December 8, 2023, the FAA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled “System Safety Assessments” (87 FR 75424). In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to amend certain airworthiness regulations to standardize the criteria for conducting safety assessments for systems installed on transport category airplanes. This would result in additional new analysis requirements under … Continue reading
The deadline for Safety Management Systems (SMS) comments is coming soon. One key question asked in the FAA proposal is whether the SMS rules should be applied to PMA holders. Continue reading
The FAA and other aviation authorities have released a Changed Product Rule (CPR) Report. It outlines proposed agreements among authorities about how to make changes to the CPR. They are accepting comment on it through March 17, 2023. The CPR affects STCs, and as we have seen STC policy can be important to the extent … Continue reading
The FAA will publish its Safety Management Systems (“SMS”) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) in tomorrow’s Federal Register. This long-awaited proposed rule has been scaled back from the original scope (manufactures and maintenance organizations) and only appears to apply to: There will be an exception for production certificates that are based purely on a supplemental … Continue reading
Safety Management Systems (SMS) is being adopted as a standard practice across the manufacturing industry. We will be discussing SMS at the Annual Conference in November. This is a review of the status of SMS regulations for manufacturers in some jurisdictions. United States The FAA is expected to take their existing SMS rule (which applies … Continue reading
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