Considering EASA Operator Responsibilities Concerning Continuing Airworthiness
Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com considers roles & responsibilities of an AOC holder related to continuing airworthiness.
Introduction
An EASA Operator will have a management system that is compliant with the requirements of EASA Regulation 965/2012 - Annex III - ORO.GEN.200 and in addition will comply with the requirements of Part - CAMO & Part M.
An EU licensed air carrier hereafter referred to as ‘the operator’, needs to consider both the relevant Part-ORO and the applicable Part CAMO / Part-M requirements.
The operator is responsible to ‘scrutinize’ all its activities under its hazard identification and risk management processes, including the continuing airworthiness activities.
It is the operator’s responsibility to ensure that hazards entailed by any continuing airworthiness management task are subject to the applicable hazard identification procedures and that related risks are managed as part of the operator’s management system procedures.
An Operator is required to demonstrate that it has overall responsibility for the Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) which is responsible for all continuing airworthiness activities.
CAMO Essential Roles & Responsibilities
The typical Roles and Responsibilities of EASA Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) are related to the Engineering & Planning Functions critical to the delivery of effective maintenance.
» Development and management of the maintenance program to ensure continual compliance with all requirements including Airworthiness Directives
» Reliability program including repetitive defect rectification.
» The process to analyze and evaluate in-service data including Service Bulletins
» Тhe management of all Continuing Airworthiness Technical Records.
A CAMO shall satisfy the following
» A Continuing Airworthiness Management Exposition (CAME),
» Facilities & Manpower (including staffing, offices, and document storage),
» Technical Records Storage
» Complaint Procedures in accordance with Part CAMO / Part M that meet regulatory acceptance
» An Independent Quality Assurance System
CAMO Maintenance Planning
Within the CAMO department, the Maintenance Planning Group has a range of responsibilities which include the delivery of the aircraft maintenance work package to ensure the aircraft remains fully compliant with the Maintenance Program.
In fact, this could be considered to be the “fixed” portion of the workload, as it does not fluctuate rather it is based on the Maintenance Planning Document “MPD”.
Together with the fixed workload, there is an associated and variable workload driven by Airworthiness Directives (AD’s). Modifications (Mods), and Service Bulletins (SBs) together with Deferred Defects.
Specific Maintenance Planning Duties include the following:
» Aircraft Maintenance Planning & Special Requirement Control and Management;
» Forward planning of Maintenance requirements by definition of proposed fleet utilization data typical either per budget year or rolling plan;
» Preparation of “Short Term”, “Mid Term” & “Long Term” Maintenance forecasts;
» Negotiate with Commercial and Operations to achieve the optimum downtime to facilitate maintenance
» Scope - Define - Plan and Issue the Aircraft Maintenance Work Package including scheduled and unscheduled activities - issue the work pack to Materials Planning and Base Maintenance Production Planning groups. (Production Planning to ensure that all required tooling is available);
» Continue to Coordinates with Material Planning group and Maintenance Production Planning Group to ensure timely availability of all aircraft parts, tooling, and materials required in support of Maintenance Work packages;
Note - much of the CAMO requirements may be “subcontracted” - however, the Operators CAMO remains responsible for the effective management & oversight of continuing airworthiness.
CAMO - EASA Part 145 Relationship
The 145 will perform maintenance in accordance with CAMO Instructions (Works Orders)
Next Steps
Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com & Sofema Online www.sofemaonline.com provide Classroom, Webinar & Online EASA Regulatory Compliant & Vocational Training please see the websites or email Team@sassofia.com
