Flight + Duty: COM vs. law

[TheRednosedReindeer]

Hi everybody - any lawyers around?

here's a fundamental question on Flight Time Limitations:
Does the law actually supersede/override/augment the Company OPS manual?

One colleague recdently explained to me like this:
"The OPS Manual is the official basis for our operation. It's the framework for our operation, defined by the authority, having taken into consideration any applicable law. It strictly defines what we CAN do (while the contract/CWA defines what the company can EXPECT us to do). If we stick to the COM, we're legal, even if some law might be more restrictive!"

Now, if there's something in the LAW more restrictive than the OPS manual, does that (consequently) mean that the authority has chosen to approve our operation with less restriction?:confused:

I.E.: If my max. duty time acc. to COM is 11 hrs, but acc. to JAR OPS only 10 hrs (in a specific situation), can I still go to 11 hrs, because it has been approved by the authority?

Cheers, TRNRD

[AerocatS2A]

In my part of the world, yes.

The company ops manual is approved by the authority. Where the flight and duty restrictions differ from the regulations, they are explicitly shown as being a concession to the regs. Therefore, the company times are the law as far as company pilots are concerned.

[Lost at fl345]

As long as ur company ops manual has been approved by the authorities which is a JAA approved state and noticing where u are residing (Germany) then its legal :(

[verticalhold]

The UK is similar to the Oz situation described by Aerocat. I've written two ops manuals so far. One CAP 360 and one JAR. In both cases the manual was allowed to deviate from the rules only if the manual was stricter ie more restrictive than the legislation. The ops manual is what the crews work to. As far as duty hours are concerned we have one concession which allows us to flog the pilots to death, but this applies to flying at certain events on certain days of the year. This concession is in the ops manual of every helicopter operator in the UK. Otherwise the Flight Time Limitations section is written exactly as per the legislation.

VH

[BizJetJock]

Not quite correct VH.
JAR's, CAP360 and CAP371 are not legislation and have no legal status. The law (ANO in UK) says that you must operate in accordance with your Ops Manual, so that is always the limiting factor. However, the CAA won't approve your OM and issue the AOC unless it complies pretty closely with the "advisory" documents.

[TheRednosedReindeer]

Thanks to all contributions so far!:)

Getting a bit more concise:

Luxembourg, our company base, is one of the few states that has implemented JAR Subp. Q as law.

In this JAR Subp. Q there is a rule about turning departure delay into standby time, which is then added to the flight duty (50% of it):
When the company does not inform us about departure delay (meaning that we base our preflight rest on wrong assumptions), the delay then counts as stby, 50% of which are added to the flight duty.

This could easily lead to grounding of a flight in many cases :ouch: -
HOWEVER, this rule is NOT printed in our COM (which otherwise reflects JAR Q rather well)

Now the big discussion is, does that rule apply for us anyway, or not?