Commission Decision of 6 February 2014 authorising Sweden and the United Kingdom to derogate from certain common aviation safety rules pursuant to Article 14(6) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document C(2014) 559) (Text with EEA relevance) (2014/69/EU)

2. ASSESSMENT OF THE REQUEST

2.1. Need

Currently there is not enough courses approved that would enable prospective SFEs to become qualified. The UK emphasised that this requirement will create an unintended burden by stating that currently there is no adequately trained resources. This may be remedied by allowing SFEs that have not complied with the requirements for the IRE to conduct proficiency checks for revalidation and renewal of the type-specific IR. The Agency considered that the UK has sufficiently demonstrated the need to derogate from the requirements of FCL.1005.SFE.

2.2. Equivalency of the level of protection

The UK justified the intended derogation by referring to the equivalent JAR-FCL requirement and identifying a change regarding the privileges of this examiner category as well as the conditions to be fulfilled by the applicant. The UK emphasised that under the JAR system many national authorities allowed the Synthetic Flight Examiner (SFE) to examine for the revalidation or renewal of the instrument flying privileges that are associated with the type rating; i.e. the revalidation or renewal of a type rating combined with the type-specific instrument rating (IR). SFEs were not permitted to examine for the general non-type-specific IR or for the initial grant of the type-specific IR privileges.

The UK further pointed out, that based on the increased privileges of the SFE, Part-FCL requires that an SFE must have complied with the requirements applicable to an Instrument Rating Examiner (IRE), which includes the requirement to hold an Instrument Rating Instructor (IRI) certificate. As Part-FCL is written, this requirement is a general prerequisite and applies therefore to all of the IR examining privileges of the SFE. It applies to the privileges for the revalidation and renewal of type-specific IRs as well as for the new privileges to examine for the initial grant of any IR.

The UK highlighted that an equivalent level of protection is maintained by the intended derogation because this derogation would restore the JAR-FCL standard.

The Agency, having reviewed the derogation request, concluded that the UK is correct in stating that the requirement FCL.1005.SFE does in fact not contain any privilege for the SFE to carry out a skill-test for the initial issue of an IR in an FFS, but is limited to the revalidation and renewal of the IR (see paragraph (a)(2)). Furthermore, the UK stated correctly that under JAR-FCL the SFE privilege allowed to conduct proficiency checks for the revalidation or renewal of the IR. The UK was also right when stating that the SFE under JAR-FCL was not required to also fulfil the IRE/IRI requirements. It is correct that the privileges of the SFE have been changed compared to JAR-FCL.

In order to include the privilege to examine for the revalidation or renewal of a combined type rating and IR without having complied with the requirements for the IRE the UK proposed that the SFE has passed a proficiency check for the aircraft type including the instrument rating within the last 12 months. An SFE with this qualification shall not examine for the initial issue of any instrument rating, or for the revalidation or renewal of an instrument rating that is not associated with a revalidation or renewal of a type rating.

Based on the review performed, the Agency agreed with the assessment of the UK that the proposed derogation provides for an equivalent level of protection to that attained by the application of Part-FCL, since it will not allow this specific group of SFEs to examine for the renewal and revalidation of an IR without having participated in an IRI course but will give them the privilege to examine for the revalidation and renewal of the type-specific IR.