Certification
AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM // MARCH 2020 27
Before 2005 the
FAA delegated certification
responsibilities to select employees of the
aircraft manufacturers called Designated Engineering
Representatives (DERs).
Under the ODA program aircraft manufacturers,
primarily Boeing have the authority to appoint their own
delegates. This loss of regulatory oversight has raised
concerns within government, despite it being the US
Congress that had mandated the FAA to create the ODA.
The US Transportation Department’s watchdog, the
Office of the Inspector General (OIG), conducted two
separate audits of the ODA in 2011 and 2015. The OIG
raised numerous concerns in the audits, including that
the FAA was not adequately prioritizing oversight of “the
highest-risk areas.”
In the summary of its 2011 audit the OIG, which is
currently conducting another audit in the light of the
CERTIFICATION DELEGATION
The use of delegation in the aircraft certification
process has been routine in the USA since the 1920s.
In Europe, EASA operates a program known as
Design Organisation Approval (DOA), which like the
FAA’s Organizational Designation Authorisation (ODA)
delegates much of the certification responsibilities to
aircraft manufacturers.
As part of the program manufacturers are required
to set up “an internal independent compliance
verification function” to independently verify
certification, says EASA’s certification director
Rachel Daeschler.
Unlike the ODA, however, “EASA does not have a
team of representatives embedded within the design
organization,” says Daeschler.
EASA says it focuses its certification efforts on
“novel, complex or critical design features.”
Canada’s certification process also involves the
delegation of certain certification responsibilities.
But, unlike the ODA, regulator Transport Canada does
not allow companies to select their own certification
engineers.
“The authorization of delegates is done solely
by Transport Canada,” says Transport Canada
spokesperson Alexandre Desjardins.
Max crisis, found that
“under the ODA program, FAA
has significantly limited its role in approving
individuals who perform work on FAA’s behalf by
delegating this approval to private companies.”
DEREGULATION
According to Stan Sorscher, a labour representative at
the US Society for Professional Engineering Employees
in Aerospace (SPEEA) and a former Boeing employee for
20 years, the most pernicious effect of the ODA program
was that it diminished the authority of technical staff.
The ODA system “isolated certification engineers” he
says, by removing their direct channel of communication
3 // Rachel Daeschler,
certification director at
the European Aviation
Safety Agency
3
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