Help me further understand something. I brought up the thing about signing off an annual with discrepancies but I am not 100% sure how that works.
If I bring an airplane to you for an annual and you find something that needs to be addressed that you cannot address, or I want to take to another shop to fix, how do you sign it off? You sign the annual off with the discrepancies and I take the airplane to another shop to get fixed. When THAT A&P fixes the discrepancies and signs off the logbooks, I now have a legal airplane, correct? I don’t have to bring it back to you for further inspection. Do I have it right?
Reading
91.409 Inspections.
(a) Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, no person may operate an aircraft unless, within the preceding 12 calendar months, it has had—
(1) An annual inspection in accordance with part 43 of this chapter and has been approved for return to service by a person authorized by §43.7 of this chapter; or
43.7 Persons authorized to approve aircraft, airframes, aircraft engines, propellers, appliances, or component parts for return to service after maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, or alteration.
(a) Except as provided in this section and §43.17, no person, other than the Administrator, may approve an aircraft, airframe, aircraft engine, propeller, appliance, or component part for return to service after it has undergone maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, or alteration.
(b) The holder of a mechanic certificate or an inspection authorization may approve an aircraft, airframe, aircraft engine, propeller, appliance, or component part for return to service as provided in Part 65 of this chapter.
(c) The holder of a repair station certificate may approve an aircraft, airframe, aircraft engine, propeller, appliance, or component part for return to service as provided in Part 145 of this chapter.
(d) A manufacturer may approve for return to service any aircraft, airframe, aircraft engine, propeller, appliance, or component part which that manufacturer has worked on under §43.3(j). However, except for minor alterations, the work must have been done in accordance with technical data approved by the Administrator.
When the A&P-IA signs off the inspection as requires in 91.409, they are not required to return it to service, but that completes the annual inspection requirement. (they can) but when it has discrepancies, they are not required to. When these discrepancies are repaired any authorized person can return the aircraft to service.