ARO.RAMP.100 General

SUSPECTED AIRCRAFT In determining whether an aircraft is suspected of not being compliant with the applicable requirements, the following should be taken into account:

(a)information regarding poor maintenance of, or obvious damage or defects to an aircraft;

(b)reports that an aircraft has performed abnormal manoeuvres that give rise to serious safety concerns in the airspace of a Member State;

(c)a previous ramp inspection that has revealed deficiencies indicating that the aircraft does not comply with the applicable requirements and where the competent authority suspects that these deficiencies have not been corrected;

(d)lists, referred to in ARO.RAMP.105, indicating that the operator or the State of the operator has been suspected of non-compliance;

(e)evidence that the State in which an aircraft is registered is not exercising proper safety oversight;

(f)concerns about the operator of the aircraft that have arisen from occurrence reporting information and non-compliance recorded in a ramp inspection report on any other aircraft used by that operator;

(g)information received from EASA Third-Country Operator (TCO) monitoring activities; or

(h)any relevant information collected pursuant to ARO.RAMP.110.

ANNUAL RAMP INSPECTION PROGRAMME

(a)The competent authority should establish an annual ramp inspection programme and determine the number of inspections for the upcoming calendar year.

(b)To establish the annual ramp inspection programme, the competent authority should consider layer 1 and layer 2 operators as defined in AMC1 ARO.RAMP.150(b)(4)(iii).

(c)For layer 1 operators, the annual ramp inspection programme should meet the target numbers of inspections as assigned by the Agency for the Member State territories in ICAO EUR region. The assigned targets for layer 1 operators may be exceeded in the following cases:

(1)operators recently considered in the lists provided by the Agency as per ARO.RAMP.105(a); or

(2)safety reasons that were not identified in the annual programme. The competent authority should keep records of the reasons leading to such over-inspections on layer 1 operators.

(d)For layer 2 operators, the total planned number of inspections as defined in the annual ramp inspection programme should not be less than the layer 2 operators target assigned by the Agency for the Member State territories in ICAO EUR region.

(e)The annual ramp inspection programme should take seasonal traffic patterns into account and, as far as possible, evenly distribute the inspections over the year.

(f)The competent authority should ensure that the annual ramp inspection programme leaves appropriate time and resources to enable the inspections of aircraft operated by layer 2 operators suspected of not being compliant with the applicable requirements.

(g)The competent authority should ensure that layer 2 operators, including unforeseen ones which cannot be a part of the established annual programme, receive inspections proportionate to the traffic pattern in the State. The following priority criteria should be considered before deciding to inspect the aircraft:

(1)prioritised ramp inspections as per ARO.RAMP.105(a);

(2)aircraft suspected of not being compliant with the applicable requirements; and

(3)inspection of an operator which was not inspected in accordance with ARO.RAMP in any State in the previous 12 months;

(h)The competent authority should amend the annual ramp inspection programme as necessary to the extent possible:

(1)when new targets are assigned by the Agency;

(2)when new layer 2 operators start operations; or

(3)following the identification of a significant increase of the safety risks level as per ARO.RAMP.100(c)(1).