Originally Posted by
A30_737_AEWC
Like you, I found myself perplexed by what a 'Continued Airworthiness Notice to the International Community' (CANIC) was supposed to be. I'd never heard of them before and there's not a register of them that I was able to find on the FAA website. I think it was rather telling that when I read about the 737 MAX CANIC in the media and tried to find a copy of it for myself, an FAA Twitter 'tweet' provided a link to the document. It hardly looks likes it's a legal airworthiness document (like an AD, NPRM, etc.). It sounds more like a 'child of the social media age' being promulgated by 'tweet' and being crafted by the 'brand managers' of the organisation whose product is found to be wanting in a crisis.
CANICs are not new. The FAA issues several of them each year, dating back maybe 10 years. It's part of an internal FAA communication process to give a "heads up" to other XAAs about an upcoming safety action, and may be issued prior (or concurrent to) an NPRM or an AD.