If a club / association has not got a structure in place where the aircraft is checked out preflight by a club / association employee trained and authorised to declare airworthiness on behalf of the club I fail to see how they can be held responsible for the airworthiness for each flight.
While on the “AOC maintenance standards” do note that even for AOC operations preflight airworthiness responsibility is a crew responsibility. Just because you’re an easyJet pilot and the plane is operated under an AOC doesn’t mean you can “expect it to be airworthy and go” when you show up at the gate.
What happens if you notice a hydraulic leak or a flat tire during walkaround? Is the aircraft still airworthy? What if you notice an instrument failure that puts you out of the MEL?
MX release is only part of the continued airworthiness enforcement. Of course the pilot is not supposed to do the maintenance follow up, but putting 100% of the responsibility on the club / maintenance just because “AOC” is not how it works.
A flat tire is obvious and, compared to the „system of parts“ one is doing a „walk-around“ pretty trivial.
If the log is clean and mx did their PDSC (eg for etops) you have to trust it is ok. No way to check things besides wings missing on a 15 minute walk around.
Not saying for one second that trusting the log is out of question – sorry if that came across that way – however how does the pilot ascertain airworthiness if the log isn’t on board? Does he assume it’s all good because AOC?
That is what I was getting at – the final responsibility before departing lies with the PIC – even if only checking the MX log is clean and both wings attached in place. And at least under French law s/he still has the final say on whether to accept or refuse an aircraft with a squawk that doesn’t render the aircraft unairworthy per the MEL / CDL.
Graham wrote:
the PIC and no-one else is responsible for satisfying themselves as to the airworthiness of an aircraft before each and every flight.
You can’t expect each PIC (each member of a club) to independently satisfy themselves the AMP is legal. They have to rely on the club for that.
A pilot pre-flight is very basic. As a Syndicate member, I have discovered things that I would never spot on an unfamiliar rental aircraft. In practice the pilot is only held responsible for defects he could reasonably discover.
(I’ve flown several hours with misaligned elevator cables. I didn’t notice handling effect, but noticed unusual position of a cable.)
