Aircraft_Maintenance_Technology_January-February_2020 - 43

FAA regulations specify that owners and operators both
have "primary responsibility" for maintaining airworthiness,
and pilots in command have the duty to assure the
aircraft is, in fact, airworthy before each flight.

ID 115809097 © TZOGIA KAPPATOU | DREAMSTIME.COM

maintaining the airworthiness of aircraft, including ensuring required maintenance is performed. While an airline may
make arrangements with another person for the performance
of any maintenance, preventive maintenance or alterations, it
does not relieve the airline of its responsibility (§ 121.363(b); §
135.413(b) is similar).
Interestingly, among all the professionals who touch aircraft,
mechanics and repair stations do not have primary responsibility
for airworthiness of the aircraft under the regulations. While
maintenance providers have plenty of related responsibilities -
see §§ 43.13 and 145.205, for example - the regulations do not
place "primary responsibility" on the shoulders of mechanics
and repair stations.
FAA regulations specify that owners and operators both
have "primary responsibility" for maintaining airworthiness,
and pilots in command have the duty to assure the aircraft is, in
fact, airworthy before each flight. In common law, this would be
called "joint and several liability," meaning that, if several people
are caught napping, they all share in the liability, sometimes
equally, sometimes in proportion to their fault. But if only one
person gets caught, that person bears the entire liability. The
term "joint and several liability" is not used in aviation regulatory law, but the concept is the same.
For example, § 121.363, which makes the airline "primarily
responsible" for airworthiness, does not relieve pilots in command of their individual responsibility under § 91.7. In a 2010
NTSB case, the FAA "ordered a suspension of respondents' airline
transport pilot (ATP) certificates for a period of 180 days each"
for violation of section § 91.7(b) and other regulations following
a maintenance acceptance flight during which wing spoilers
were seen to be "floating," which is not a good thing. The pilots

had allegedly failed to heed before taking off, a warning on the
airline aircraft's Electronic Centralized Monitor (ECAM) that
a spoiler servo-jack had failed. The FAA's case collapsed when
they failed to prove that the ECAM had correctly indicated the
problem, not because the airline's regulatory responsibility for
airworthiness relieved the pilots of theirs, nor because a maintenance provider had failed to repair or install the servo-jack
correctly.
So, as owners or operators or pilots in command, the burden
is on us to know when our aircraft is airworthy. How can we
tell? Does the aircraft have to be perfect? Does our knowledge
of it have to be perfect?
We'll look at that next time.

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