Morton, I'm quite aware of Chapters 23 and 25 thank you, and indeed the rest of them.
ukv1145 I certainly wasn't having a go at you, my question was aimed at SM and his usual condescending tone.
I would have suspected that role equipment would not in fact be regarded as part of the aircraft. A crew life jacket, flying helmet, immersion suit etc are most certainly not. Nothing you have listed "crew personal equipment such as life jackets, QRB's, harnesses, strops etc" seems to me to be an aircraft component, or even fall under ATA 25-60 or 25-61.
This was why i wanted SM to come up with "the goods" so to speak, to back up his comment.
As an aside, I was told that the winchmen on the offshore based SAR helicopters in the Norwegian sector are all actually EASA B1/2 licence holders. They fly them and fix them.