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Maintenance and Manufacturing Staff Instructions, MSI 47


Subject: Number: MSI 47
Procedures for Communication Regarding Approved Maintenance Organizations Accepted by the Joint Aviation Authority

 Revision No: 0
  Number of Pages: 3
File No:  AARP-5009-3-47 Issue Date: June 28, 2002

1. Purpose

1.1 The purpose of this Maintenance Staff Instruction is to provide information and procedures for communication between the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA). 

1.2 As part of the Technical Agreement - Maintenance (TA-M), TCCA will engage in mutual cooperation and technical assistance with the JAA. This communication is normally done at the headquarters level. However, some circumstances will require regional input and this MSI was composed to address those situations. 

2. Background

2.1 On 24 June 1996, the Director General TCCA signed a Technical Arrangement - Maintenance (TA-M) with eighteen National Airworthiness Authorities (NAA) of the JAA full member States. This TA-M allows for the reciprocal acceptance of maintenance organizations qualifying under the terms of the arrangement, subject to equivalent safety standards being established.

2.2 The TA?M document contains the basis for acceptance of each other's maintenance organizations and is supported by procedures covered in this staff instruction. Additional reference information is available in the following documents: 

  1. JAA documents: Administrative and Guidance Material, Section Two ? Maintenance: Chapters 32 Working Procedures for the Technical Arrangement Maintenance with Transport Canada Civil Aviation and 33 Procedures for the Acceptance of Canadian Approved Maintenance Organisations; and Temporary Guidance Leaflet No. 23 - JAA Acceptance of Canadian Approved Maintenance Organisations.
  2. TCCA documents: MSI 9 & 10 provide information and procedures for the evaluation and acceptance of JAR?145 Organizations by TCCA, Airworthiness Notice (AN) B035 outlines the procedures for a JAR-145 Organization to apply for Acceptance by TCCA, and a sample form for developing a supplement is available at www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/maintenance-regsdocs-download-2941.htm as a downloadable file. 

3. Identification of TCCA AMOS Accepted by the JAA

3.1 A Canadian Approved Maintenance Organization (AMO), which is accepted by the JAA to conduct maintenance on aircraft registered in a JAA full Member state, can be identified as being accepted by referring to the JAA publication 145 List:- JAR-145 Approved/Accepted Organisations available through the JAA. Alternatively, an Inspector can refer to National Aviation Company Information System (NACIS) for a JAA indication in the appropriate box. Requests for further information can be submitted to the HQ Contact below. 

3.2 The JAA, once an AMO is accepted, will issue a certificate and an acceptance number. The scope of work, accepted by the JAA, will not exceed the approval issued by TCCA. These AMOs are required to submit a supplement to their MPM to the JAA for acceptance. This supplement together with the MPM meets the requirements for JAR-145. They should be co-located but this is not a requirement.

4. Information to be Communicated Regarding JAA Accepted AMOS

4.1 The following information may be requested by the JAA during the initial acceptance, renewal, or certificate amendment process: 

  1. The current status of an AMO with respect to certificate ratings, 
  2. Enforcement activities including actions taken against the certificate in the form of suspensions or cancellations, 
  3. Any non-compliance or investigation activities, which may affect the AMO's ability to perform in accordance with the terms of the TA-M, 
  4. Verification of an organization's standing in our audit cycle.

5. Communication for Initial and Renewal of Acceptances

5.1 The Standards and Procedures Division (AARPE) of Maintenance and Manufacturing Branch will be the Office of Prime Interest (OPI) for JAA accepted AMO's and act as the primary communication point. It will be the responsibility of the OPI to maintain the NACIS database with the information on which companies are currently accepted (i.e. the JAA acknowledgement box).

5.2 The OPI will receive requests from the JAA and communicate them to the regions via the Regional Manager or delegate where input is requested that is not kept in the NACIS database (e.g. audit executive summary). Where the information is located in the NACIS database the OPI may communicate the information back to the JAA directly.

5.3 Regional responses should be sent back to the OPI, for transmission to the JAA. In the event that information is sent to the JAA directly from the region, the OPI needs to be informed.

5.4 The AMO will be sent information packages from the JAA indicating that they require a letter from TCCA and the latest audit executive summary. This may initiate a request from an AMO to their local Transport Canada Center (TCC) prior to the TCC receiving a request for the information from the OPI. In such an event the inspector in the TCC should contact the OPI to pass on the necessary information.

5.5 When the information required by the JAA from TCCA has been gathered, a formal response will be sent from the OPI to the JAA. The JAA will use this information as a basis for granting acceptance. The JAA will inform the OPI of the issuance of a new acceptance, or renewal, and the OPI will then update the NACIS database. 

6. Communication of Changes to Company Status

6.1 Updates to a certificate status, or any action changing the certificates such as identified in section 4, are to be communicated to the OPI to ensure the JAA are kept apprised of any actions that TCCA may take in respect to our approvals.

7. Oversight of JAA Accepted AMOS

7.1 The fact that an organization has been accepted by the JAA affects how we monitor the organization, as we are obliged to ensure that the additional requirements of the JAA supplement are met. This must be considered at the time of an audit, and the Inspection and Audit Manual will refer to additional checklists for reviewing this portion of the organization.

7.2 Where an AMO is accepted by the JAA it is our responsibility to ensure the AMO meets the requirements of the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs), and their MPM in conjunction with the supplement. It is not for us to evaluate an AMO against the JAR-145 requirements.

7.3 When formulating audit plans, should two companies (one JAA accepted and one not) have equal risk indicators for an audit, the JAA accepted company would have a higher priority, enabling our international obligations to be fulfilled.

7.4 As part of our communication efforts, the OPI updates the JAA with our audit plans for accepted AMOs with a "next audit date" report created from NACIS. The report will be sent to the regions for verification against current regional audit plans prior to forwarding to the JAA.

7.5 The JAA also randomly monitors accepted Canadian AMOs by conducting Maintenance International Standardization Team (MIST) visits to review our oversight activity. These are done by short duration high-level audits on a sample of the accepted AMOs in a chosen region at an interval of approximately 18 months.

8. JAA Communication for JAR-145 Organizations

8.1 A similar system is used to confirm the validity of JAR 145 Organizations that have applied to TCCA for acceptance. These organizations are tracked in NACIS by the OPI. Refer to MSI 10. 

9. Effective Date

9.1 This instruction comes into effect immediately.

10. HQ Contact

10.1 The responsible officer indicated below may be contacted for information regarding this MSI:

John Glavind, AARPE
Aircraft Maintenance & Manufacturing
E-mail: glavinj@tc.gc.ca
Phone: (613) 952-4378
Facsimile: (613) 952-3298

D.B. Sherritt
Director,
Maintenance and Manufacturing

Date modified:
2011-03-01