8900.1 vs CFR's

[RotorAndWing]

Aviation Week

April 10, 2014


Maintenance, repair and overhaul industry officials say FAA employees and managers are in some cases imposing ad hoc rules on MRO companies by improperly using the FAA’s internal on-line flight standards information management system (FSIMS), an electronic documentation system the agency adopted to replace the legacy “inspector’s handbook”.
In particular the issues surround Order 8900.1 in FSIMS, which provides the guidelines that inspectors use to oversee and certify airlines and maintenance organizations, including work instructions for maintenance.
The internal system, however, has become a place where FAA employees can make de facto standards outside of the FAA’s processes for rulemaking and guidance. “It’s a fundamental flaw in the FAA’s regulatory process,” said Jason Dickstein, an aviation attorney and representative of the Aviation Suppliers Association, at Aviation Week’s MRO Americas conference in Phoenix on April 9. “There are no checks and balances for that.”
Legally, Order 8900.1 provides instructions for FAA employees to use internally, but the system is not supposed to be used to introduce new standards, explains Dickstein. “The problem is that new standards get shunted into the orders,” he says. Unlike new rules or advisory circulars, orders, because they are meant to be internal documents, do not require a review by FAA’s general counsel’s office for compliance with existing rules and guidance. Dickstein says he has talked to FAA employees and managers who have admitted using Order 8900.1 to implement changes that they knew would not pass the review process in the legal department. “They’re circumventing the system,” he says.
While “guidance” infers some measure of leeway on the part of the inspectors, airlines say the reality is quite different. “Order 8900 has become our alternate rule book,” says a maintenance official with Virgin America. “And it’s really interesting how the 8900, which we’re being held to, just changes miraculously.” He says the order is followed as law by the inspectors. “If anyone thinks that it doesn’t represent the law in the field, they’re not in the field. I don’t know any inspector who looks at 8900 as guidance material.”
Asked during a panel discussed what the FAA was doing to slow down the changes to help airlines “catch their breath,” the director of the FAA’s Flight Standards Service, John Duncan, said he was working to “reset” the culture within the agency that leads inspectors to make such changes. He notes that Order 8900 was created to “fill in the gaps” where regulations are vague or unclear, but that it represents “one way” to meet a requirement, not the only way. “We should not be using 8900 as a regulatory document or as a way to avoid putting out an advisory circular,” he says, adding that maintenance organizations should confront their inspectors on the issues, and also alert higher managers in the FAA. “A healthy relationship means you have to be able to say there’s a different way to do this.”

 

[Stache]

I would like to address this statement, the old inspector handbooks 8300.9 and later 8300.10 for maintenance inspector was combined with the pilot’s handbooks and put in an electronic format now called Order 8900.1. You are correct it can be found in the FSIMS and anyone with a computer has access to it.

If you take the older FAA handbooks and match them with the new 8900.1 you will see they read very much the same way. The electronic format is updated all the time saving tons of paper and time for each handbook being updated by hand. I think the statement “has become a place where FAA employees can make de facto standards outside of the FAA’s processes for rulemaking and guidance” holds and water so to speak and is a pretty bold statement because it simply is not ture.

Order 8900.1 provides instructions for FAA employees to use to comply with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs). Inspector (ASIs) are required by FAA guide lines to follow the procedures in 8900.1 to gain compliance with the CFRs. The 8900.1 does not introduce new standards so I don’t understand with Mr. Dickstein comes up with this. I certain do not believe any ASI or manager uses the 8900.1 as stated “They’re circumventing the system,”.

Every ASI uses the 8900.1 procedures as guidance material as it is NOT a CFR which is public law. If an inspector does not follow the 8900.1 guidance material they can by dismissed for now following FAA procedures and that is very serious. The ASI walk a tight rope in some cases, but I would challenge anyone to find a procedure in the 8900.1 that is contrary to the CFRs and if they do in the back of the handbook is a form to fill out to make a change.

There are many ways to gain compliance with a CFR the 8900.1 and during a certification and airline, repair station, or airman can certainly provide their procedure to show compliance to the CFR. One thing the8900.1 is not a standard it is an Order. Below is what it says in the first volume:

Volume 1 GENERAL INSPECTOR GUIDANCE AND INFORMATION​

Chapter 1 HANDBOOK ORGANIZATION, USE, AND REVISION​

Section 1 General Handbook Information
1-1 PURPOSE. This order directs the activities of aviation safety inspectors (ASI) responsible for the certification, technical administration, and surveillance of air carriers, certain other air operators conducting operations in accordance with the appropriate part of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR), certificated airmen, and other aviation activities. This order also provides direction for tasks related to aircraft accidents and incidents, investigations and compliance, the aviation safety program, administrative areas, and miscellaneous tasks not related to a specific regulation. In addition, it contains regional and district office requirements for the support of ASIs responsible for those activities.

I would recommend anyone who has an interest in know how the FAA does their assigned tasks to take a look at the Order 8900.1.

 

[warthog1984]

That was a very rambling and painful post to read.

I think what you are missing here is that 8900.1 tells the inspectors what *the inspectors* have to look for and one way for *the inspectee* to comply with the FARs.

However, it seems that inspectors are confusing *what they are told to check* with what *the inspectee has to do* while forgetting that *one way to comply* does not imply it is the *only way to comply*. Hence, stealth restrictions imposed by ASIs.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Sure would help understanding this if a specific example or two were provided.