See ATSB report BS/20010005,
"Investigation into Ansett Australia maintenance safety
deficiencies and the control of continuing airworthiness of Class A
aircraft".
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that the US
Federal Aviation Administration ensure that there is a defined and
consistent understanding throughout the FAA as to the importance of
airworthiness directives that mandate revisions of the
Airworthiness Limitations Structural Inspections for damage
tolerance aircraft types, and that such airworthiness directives
are processed and released without undue delay.
The FAA Order 8040.1M cites Airworthiness Directives Manual,
FAA-AIR-M-8040.1, which gives direction to FAA employees for
issuing Airworthiness Directives (AD). This manual provides
guidance on ADs for Aircraft Structural Limitations. Concerning the
importance of ADs pertaining to airworthiness limitations, because
they are intended to correct an unsafe condition, we consider all
ADs of the highest importance and assign our limited resources
accordingly. We make every effort to expeditiously issue ADs, and,
at the same time, stay within the constraints of our public notice
system. As with any other system, we continuously work to improve
our process of risk assessment and prioritization methodologies. We
urge States of Registry to make independent assessments of the
alert service bulletins that US manufacturers issue and to act on
their own initiative to avoid perceived delays resulting from our
AD issuance process.
ATSB Note:
Based on the previous advice ATSB reclassifies the
recommendation as Closed-Partially Accepted (31 March 2008).
