Цитата:
AOPA Sweden wins on mandatory SBs
After a long campaign by AOPA Sweden, the European Commission has explicitly stated that Service Bulletins, Service Letters, Service Instructions and other similar documents are not mandatory and member states cannot force aircraft owners and pilots to comply with them.
The news is particularly important in Sweden, where aviation authorities had decreed that all SBs and other manufacturers’ notices had to be complied with. This led to a situation where, for example, aircraft had to be flown to qualified engineers every 30 days to have the door seals lubricated, leading to a dangerous swelling of the seals. Other countries imposed similar requirements.
Dan Akerman of AOPA Sweden reports that the EC has confirmed that Swedish authorities have no right to do this. Bizarrely, the Swedish national aviation authority has responded by removing the mandate from its website and claiming it never mandated compliance in the first place. Dan Akerman reports:
“In the Basic Regulation 216/2008, article 20 (1) (j) EASA is given the authority to issue mandatory safety information in response to a safety problem, for example, Airworthiness Directives. This also means that EASA is the only entity allowed to do this. The Swedish NAA, Transportstyrelsen, (TS) however, issued in 2011 an ordinance AIR 3-2011 which stated that all Service Bulletins etc with recurring actions had to be included in the Aircraft Maintenance Program (AMP).
“In other words, TS effectively issued a blanket AD-note making all SBs etc mandatory. By doing this the TS breached the Basic Regulation which is EU law, and when a national authority breaches the EU law, the Commission will step in. AOPA Sweden complained to the Commission in November 2012 and in September 2013 EASA, on behalf of the Commission, visited Transportstyrelsen to find out what was going on.
“What really happened during this visit is unknown to us, but the result is that the ordinance 3-2011 is mysteriously no longer available on the TS homepage, and TS also states to the Commission that it has never, NEVER, demanded that all SBs etc be included in the AMP.
“They are not fooling anybody of course, and the bottom line is that the European Commission now supports the view that SBs etc are only recommendations, to be implemented at the aircraft owner’s discretion. This is apparently valid for all aircraft regardless of size.
“It is also in line with the fact that only Airworthiness Directives, Airworthiness Limitations and Certification Maintenance Requirements are truly mandatory under the law and that the NAA who ultimately approves the AMP must do so in accordance with EU law and EASA regulations.
“Now we must think of how we can be refunded for unnecessary maintenance carried out and hours spent on searching for SBs etc maybe decades back. The NAAs have forced us to do costly maintenance without any foundation in law. Someone should be held liable.”
Если в двух словах - Шведская АОПА добилась от Еврокомиссии решения о том, что сервисные бюллетени, письма и инструкции (SB, SL, SI) носят рекомендательный характер, их выполнение не есть обязательным, требование о включении их выполнения в Программы ТО безосновательны.
А если вцелом - практически детективная история получается