An airplane's passenger count on one flight is not the test in the FAA's revised normal-category certification rule. Published December 30, 2016, section 23.2005 applies to aircraft configured for 19 or fewer passenger seats and a maximum certificated takeoff weight of 19,000 pounds or less. Both boundaries are inclusive, and both must be satisfied. [2016-30246]

Within that scope, the final rule replaces prescriptive design requirements with performance-based airworthiness standards. The distinction is between specifying a design and specifying the performance it must demonstrate. It does not eliminate certification: section 23.2010 requires a means of compliance accepted by the Administrator, which may include consensus standards. The acceptance requirement remains part of the mechanism. [2016-30246]

The March 14 proposal explains an important limit to the rewrite. It proposed no substantive changes to cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder provisions; changes to the latter would align references. Thus even the proposed broad revision did not mean every requirement was being substantively replaced. The proposal is useful procedural history, not a second final rule or an independent safety assessment. [2016-05493]

The final document lists August 30, 2017 as its effective date. On this December coverage date, publication and adoption therefore precede effectiveness. Its summary also describes increased safety requirements concerning icing and loss of control. Reading the two stages together establishes what the agency changed and preserved; it cannot establish the later accident record or whether a particular aircraft qualifies for certification. [2016-30246][2016-05493]

Source documents

  1. Revision of Airworthiness Standards for Normal, Utility, Acrobatic, and Commuter Category Airplaneshttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-12-30/html/2016-30246.htm
  2. Revision of Airworthiness Standards for Normal, Utility, Acrobatic, and Commuter Category Airplaneshttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-03-14/html/2016-05493.htm