Originally Posted by
tucumseh
That, surely, is where the MAA should have been focusing attention.
To be fair to the MAA they did establish their plans early on, structuring them as 10 separate workstreams and I believe the implementation issue was a serious driver. The creation of the Duty Holder construct was an attempt to establish clear obligations for those charged with the responsibility for the various aspects of military aviation safety to improve implementation.
As regards the regs/EMAR aspect, I think they also recognised that the existing regs had developed over the years in a higgledy piggledy fashion and were somewhat lacking. Courts tend to recognise the civil regs as a sort of 'gold standard' and basing future regs on the civil approach was a shrewd move. Harmonisation of the regs across the various National approaches in Europe also tended to enhance the regs' status in the eyes of Courts (we're following International best practice etc...) and shared the rule making task across a larger number of competent people. Note that the UK wasn't the only Nation worrying that their regulatory arrangements were not fit for purpose, faults having been brought to light by the findings following fatal accidents.
Without going into details, I believe that the MAA's audits did find issues within the PTs but they accepted that efforts to correct the failings were in progress so further time for compliance was granted. Some issues will take quite a time to fix but I've been away from the sharp end for some years and I have no feel for the current state of play.
EAP