CAAC, EASA and FAA aircraft certification evidence
Plan cross-authority aircraft certification research with a validation matrix that separates requirements, authority findings and reusable evidence.
About this article: This information illustrates the potential benefits of Aviation.Bot’s upcoming regulatory library and desktop/web document-review features. It is not compliance guidance, legal advice or a basis for a regulatory, certification or operational decision. Examples demonstrate the workflow; verify applicable official sources and use qualified professional judgement for actual work.
Workflow at a glance
Original workflow illustration. Candidate findings remain subject to qualified human review; the diagram does not establish an approval or compliance decision.
A certificate is a starting point for another market
An aircraft programme entering a second jurisdiction has a document problem before it has a search problem. Engineers must establish which approval is sought, which authority leads the original certification, which authority validates it, and which evidence can support the next decision. A folder labelled “certification complete” cannot answer those questions on its own.
COMAC's C919 illustrates why authority names matter. CAAC's official announcement records presentation of its type certificate in September 2022. That fact establishes a CAAC approval milestone; it does not establish another authority's approval. EASA's published EASA–CAAC Technical Implementation Procedures FAQ explicitly explains that Chinese type certificates undergo the validation process in the TIP. This article makes no claim about an FAA application or a current EASA completion date. CAAC certificate announcement, EASA–CAAC TIP FAQ.
The useful research question is therefore specific: which findings, technical records and authority procedures support this programme's target approval? Treating validation as a universal conversion between certificates hides the scope decisions a programme must actually make.
Photo by 鱼 鱼 on Unsplash. Illustrative photograph; not identified as a COMAC facility or aircraft.
Separate the framework from the programme decision
The EU–China bilateral aviation safety agreement provides an institutional framework, with published procedures for airworthiness and environmental certification. It is useful context for deciding where to look. Its existence alone does not settle an individual product's validation requirements or supply a certificate. EU–China agreement and implementation documents.
Begin with a short approval-path record: product and configuration, intended jurisdiction, requested approval, certifying and validating authorities, applicable agreement, procedure revision and open scope questions. Have the programme's authorised specialists confirm this record before building a long clause comparison. This prevents a supplier from assembling technically impressive evidence for the wrong approval path.
Keep import airworthiness work distinct from design approval. The FAA's import guidance describes the documentation associated with imported products, including conformity to a US type certificate. An export document is not a substitute for the underlying design approval it references. FAA import airworthiness approval.
Build a matrix around evidence, not matching headings
A useful working matrix connects each applicable requirement to a means of compliance, controlled evidence and decision status. Include the authority, exact clause, amendment level, applicability rationale, evidence identifier, configuration, responsible reviewer, authority correspondence and unresolved question.
Two provisions can have similar headings while differing in scope or interpretation. Conversely, a single test report may support more than one review without making the requirements identical. Label a proposed reuse as “candidate evidence” until the appropriate reviewer confirms its suitability. Preserve references to the original report and record the reasoning for each destination requirement.
This structure makes a review meeting more productive: an engineer can identify the unresolved assumption without reconstructing it from a slide deck, an email chain and several PDFs.
Synthetic example: a supplier changes a component
Imagine a fictional manufacturer developing an aircraft under a CAAC-led programme while preparing an EASA validation evidence package. A supplier changes a component's software baseline after a test report was accepted internally. The programme must investigate whether that change affects the report's relevance and any previously documented authority position.
The research pack contains the relevant approval procedure, programme certification basis, supplier change notice, test report, configuration register and correspondence. The reviewer produces three artifacts: an evidence-reuse matrix, a configuration delta note and an open-question register.
One matrix row may retain the report as candidate evidence but flag the software mismatch. Another may identify an internal document that still references the earlier baseline. Neither row declares the aircraft compliant. They make the missing assessment visible so the responsible engineer can resolve it through the established programme process.
Where AI assistance can help
An assistant can help retrieve exact passages, locate references to superseded documents, compare source revisions and draft an evidence index. The reviewer should check each citation against the source, especially tables, exceptions and bilingual material. A translated summary must preserve the original-language reference and identify any terms whose meaning remains uncertain.
Search accuracy is only one part of the workflow. Teams also need source provenance, revision control and a clear distinction between an authority finding, company interpretation and unfinished draft. Measure practical value through reviewable outputs and correction rates rather than promising a fixed saving before observing the work.
Reviewing the evidence with Aviation.Bot’s upcoming workspace
Aviation.Bot’s upcoming regulatory library and desktop/web features are designed to support cross-authority validation research like this. The starting libraries cover EASA, FAA, UK CAA, CAAC and Dutch IL&T across multiple document categories. The workflow lets a reviewer review the selected CAAC and counterpart sources beside certification plans and configuration-controlled evidence, preserving original-language references and translation questions. Desktop users work with selected local folders and files; browser users upload selected documents to their workspace. Available sources and editions remain visible parts of the review rather than an assumed complete collection.
The practical difference from a typical ChatGPT upload session is the aviation-specific source collection and repeatable document-review workflow: selected regulatory material sits alongside the organisation’s manuals, procedures and evidence, with references the reviewer can reopen. ChatGPT also supports file analysis; Aviation.Bot’s differentiation is how the source set and review task are organised, rather than a claim that general assistants cannot read documents.
Complex tables and forms deserve the same inspection as prose. The workflow is being developed to retain table relationships, headings, footnotes and form context, and to let the reviewer check the original page when extraction is uncertain. Reliable review depends on seeing that structure—not merely receiving a confident summary. Better accuracy, complete table fidelity and time savings require task-specific validation; they are not established by having a curated database.
For certification teams, the proposed outcome is a cited draft matrix and an explicit list of unanswered questions. Qualified people retain applicability decisions, regulatory interpretation and approval responsibility. A useful first exercise is one approval path, one change and one evidence set—not a claim that an assistant certifies an aircraft.
Suggested CTA: Explore Aviation.Bot's current EASA assistant and follow updates on the planned multi-authority document workflow at aviation.bot.
Prepared with AI assistance and editorial checks against linked official sources. Illustrative examples do not represent authority or independent expert approval.