Maintenance and Alterations are similar in compliance standards and the records by which they are approved for return to service. |
43.13 Performance rules (general).
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43.9 Content, form, and disposition of maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, and alteration records (except inspections).
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The key part of 43.13 is that using current instructions provided and tooling recommended by the Manufacturer or the FAA. If the technician actually performs the task as required, the technician shares liability with the manufacturer for doing the maintenance or inspection task recommended data. Some maintenance date is just wrong.
if available, to resolve the data errors. The technician should not move forward using data with known errors. Using known or suspected bad data may start a whole new chain of errors and may lead to a falsification issue for the technician. If there is no manufacturer's engineering/tech pubs group to work with, the technician may perform the task per industry standards and approved techniques. The technician should be very detailed with the maintenance entry. Technician: Do not falsify! FAR 43.12 This is the fastest way to lose your licence! Owner/operator: Do not ask a technician to falsify. Your safety will be negatively effected. This will increase the liability for the technician. |
The technician should use a general description of the tasks performed with the manufacturer's manual reference used for the specific details in the maintenance entry. If the technician tries to adequately document every step, the record volume will be huge. If the there is no Manufacturer's data for a needed task, the maintenance record should be very detailed including all significant steps, torque values, lubricants used, etc. Opinion: There is a regulatory fail here that leaves out the total time in service at the time of the return to service. Please have your maintenance provider add that to all entries. |