M.A.709 Documentation

When using maintenance data provided by the customer, the CAMO is responsible for ensuring that this data is current. As a consequence, it should establish appropriate procedures or provisions in the contract with the customer. The sentence ‘…, except when required by point M.A.714’, means, in particular, the need to keep a copy of the customer data which was used to perform continuing airworthiness activities during the contract period. ‘Baseline’ maintenance programme: it is a maintenance programme developed for a particular aircraft type following, where applicable, the maintenance review board (MRB) report, the type certificate holder’s maintenance planning document (MPD), the relevant chapters of the maintenance manual or any other maintenance data containing information on scheduling. ‘Generic’ maintenance programme: it is a maintenance programme developed to cover a group of similar types of aircraft. These programmes should be based on the same type of instructions as the baseline maintenance programme. Examples of ‘generic’ maintenance programmes could be Cessna 100 Series (covering Cessna 150, 172, 177, etc.). ‘Baseline’ and ‘generic’ maintenance programmes are not applicable to a particular aircraft registration mark, but to an aircraft type or group of types, and should be available to the competent authority prior to the initial approval and prior to the extension of the scope of an existing organisation approval. The intent is that the competent authority is aware of the scope and complexity of tasks that will be managed before granting an organisation approval or change of approval. After this initial approval, when an owner/operator is contracted, the baseline or generic maintenance programme, as applicable, may be used to establish the M.A.302 aircraft maintenance programme, incorporating the additional maintenance tasks and indicating those which are not applicable to a particular aircraft registration mark. This may be achieved by adding an Annex to the baseline/generic maintenance programme for each aircraft registration, specifying which tasks are added and which are not applicable. This will result in an aircraft maintenance programme specific for each customer. However, this does not mean that this adaptation must be performed for each contracted aircraft registration. The reason is that the customer may already have an approved aircraft maintenance programme, which in that case should be used by the continuing airworthiness management organisation to manage the continuing airworthiness of such aircraft. Continuing airworthiness management organisations may seek authorisation for indirect approval in order to amend the aircraft maintenance programme mentioned above in accordance with M.A.302(c). The indirect approval procedure should include provisions to notify to the competent authority that an aircraft maintenance programme specific for a customer has been created. The reason is that, according to M.A.704(a)9, for aircraft not used by air carriers licensed in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008, the Continuing Airworthiness Management Exposition (CAME) only needs to include the reference to the baseline/generic maintenance programme.

Paragraph M.A.709(a) refers to continuing airworthiness tasks referred to in M.A.708. As a consequence, this covers continuing airworthiness management tasks but not airworthiness reviews. Airworthiness review requirements are established in M.A.710 and the requirements for the corresponding record retention are contained in M.A.714.