CAMO.A.125 Terms of approval and privileges of the organisation

SUBCONTRACTING OF CONTINUING AIRWORTHINESS TASKS

(a)The CAMO may subcontract certain continuing airworthiness management tasks to qualified organisations. The subcontracted organisation performs the continuing airworthiness management tasks as an integral part of the CAMO’s management system, irrespective of any other approval held by the subcontracted organisation (including CAMO or Part-145 approval).

(b)The CAMO remains accountable for the satisfactory completion of the continuing airworthiness management tasks irrespective of any contract that may be established.

(c)In order to fulfil this responsibility, the CAMO should be satisfied that the actions taken by the subcontracted organisation meet the standards required by Part-CAMO. Therefore, the CAMO management of such activities should be accomplished:

(1)by active control through direct involvement; and/or

(2)by endorsing the recommendations made by the subcontracted organisation.

(d)In order to retain ultimate responsibility, the CAMO should limit subcontracted tasks to the activities specified below:

(1)airworthiness directive analysis and planning;

(2)service bulletin analysis;

(3)planning of maintenance;

(4)reliability monitoring, engine health monitoring;

(5)maintenance programme development and amendments;

(6)any other activities, which do not limit the CAMO responsibilities, as agreed by the competent authority.

(e)The CAMO’s controls associated with subcontracted continuing airworthiness management tasks should be reflected in the associated contract and be in accordance with the CAMO policy and procedures defined in the CAME. When such tasks are subcontracted, the management system is considered to be extended to the subcontracted organisations.

(f)With the exception of engines and auxiliary power units, contracts would normally be limited to one organisation per aircraft type for any combination of the activities described in Appendix II. Where contracts are made with more than one organisation, the CAMO should demonstrate that adequate coordination controls are in place and that the individuals’ responsibilities are clearly defined in the related contracts.

(g)Contracts should not authorise the subcontracted organisation to subcontract to other organisations elements of the continuing airworthiness management tasks.

(h)The competent authority should exercise oversight of the subcontracted activities through the CAMO approval. The contracts should be acceptable to the competent authority. The CAMO should only subcontract to organisations which are specified by the competent authority on EASA Form 14.

(i)The subcontracted organisation should agree to notify the CAMO of any changes affecting the contract as soon as practical. The CAMO should then inform its competent authority. Failure to do so may invalidate the competent authority’s acceptance of the contract.

(j)Appendix II to AMC1 CAMO.A.125(d)(3) provides information on the subcontracting of continuing airworthiness management tasks.

(a)An organisation may be approved for the privileges of point CAMO.A.125(d) only, without the privilege to carry out airworthiness reviews. In this case, the airworthiness review can be contracted to another appropriately approved organisation. It is not mandatory that this contracted organisation is linked to an AOC holder, and it is possible to contract an appropriately approved independent CAMO which is approved for the same aircraft type.

(b)In order to be approved for the privileges of point CAMO.A.125(e) for a particular aircraft type, it is necessary to be approved for the privileges of point CAMO.A.125(d) for that particular aircraft type.

This includes, for example:

(1)having the appropriate procedures to manage the continuing airworthiness in the CAME;

(2)demonstrating the capability to develop or manage the aircraft maintenance programme (AMP) (e.g. via an approved AMP, a generic AMP, or other means acceptable to the competent authority);

(3)having access to the necessary maintenance data, or demonstrating that such data can be obtained through contractual arrangements with the aircraft owner or aircraft operator;

(4)employing staff competent and trained for the aircraft types included in the organisation’s scope of work.

(c)

(c)Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the organisation needs to be currently managing an aircraft type in order to be able to perform airworthiness reviews on that aircraft type. The organisation may be performing only airworthiness reviews on an aircraft type without having any customer under contract for that type.

(d)Furthermore, this situation should not necessarily lead to the removal of the aircraft type from the organisation approval. As a matter of fact, since in most cases the airworthiness review staff are not involved in continuing airworthiness management activities, it cannot be argued that these airworthiness review staff are going to lose their skills just because the organisation is not managing a particular aircraft type. The important issue in relation to maintaining a particular aircraft type in the organisation approval is whether the organisation continuously fulfils all the Part-CAMO requirements (facilities, documentation, qualified personnel, management system, etc.) required for initial approval.