The FAA, responding to industry concern, has reinserted the word “serious” in the paragraph of 14 CFR Part 145 requiring repair stations to report to the agency within 96 hours failures, malfunctions or defects in articles received for work. A coalition of industry organizations submitted supportive comments highlighting that a plain reading of the service difficulty reporting requirements without the word “serious” would mean submitting information on everything that comes through the door, as repair stations only receive articles that need work because of failures, malfunctions or defects.
Brett Levanto, the Aeronautical Repair Station Association’s director of operations, told AIN, “Imagine a delivery truck dropping off a service difficulty report for every single piece of work that a repair station has come through its doors…now multiply that by more than 4,000 repair stations across the United States. That’s the volume of workwe were talking about, a mountain of paperwork not just for our members but also for the agency. In the end, the language of the rule needs to square not only with its own regulatory history but with the business realities of our members; that’s how we keep the public safe in flight.”
