What is the formal process for aircraft certification between Transport Canada and the U.S. FAA?
Executive summary
The formal aircraft-certification relationship between Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is governed by a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) and detailed Implementation Procedures (TIP) that create technical reciprocity: a design or production approval issued by one authority can be validated or accepted by the other to avoid duplicate full assessments [1] [2]. That system includes defined validation streams, shared technical guidance (CATA), and continuing work to harmonize processes, but it also allows for different national responsibilities and has faced scrutiny after high-profile events like the 737 MAX crashes [3] [4] [5].
1. The legal backbone: BASA and Implementation Procedures
The starting point is the Canada–U.S. Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) and its Implementation Procedures for Airworthiness, which authorize TCCA and the FAA to accept each other’s certifications and lay out how validation and acceptance are to be performed, including classification of projects as “basic” or “non-basic” and which authority leads a validation activity [2] [1].
2. How a type certificate or approval moves between authorities
When a manufacturer obtains a type certificate, production certificate, or supplemental type certificate (STC) from one authority, the other authority performs either a streamlined validation or a technical validation based on the project classification and the established certification basis; for some Canadian STCs, TCCA will undertake review and approvals on behalf of both authorities under the TIP [2] [6].
3. Technical harmonization and mutual acceptance mechanisms
Agreements are supported by tools such as the Technical Implementation Procedures (TIP), the Validation Improvement Roadmap, and multinational bodies like the Certification Authorities for Transport Airplanes (CATA), which document harmonized means-of-compliance and let one authority accept an endorsed methodology from the other to speed validation [1] [4] [3].
4. Roles, responsibilities and the “validating authority” concept
Under ICAO practice and BASA/TIP arrangements, the state of design (often the FAA for many U.S. designs) retains primary responsibility for demonstrating compliance, while the state of registry (e.g., TCCA for aircraft registered in Canada) typically acts as the validating authority and may accept the original certification rather than re-performing full examinations, though it retains the right to require additional substantiation [4] [3].
5. Practical procedures: certification basis, TCDS, and operational evaluation
Transport Canada’s National Aircraft Certification issues Type Certificate Data Sheets (TCDS) after type certification and coordinates operational evaluations separately through its Operational Evaluation (OE) program; type designators and pilot type ratings are aligned after these steps, and where Transport Canada accepts a foreign type certificate it may rely on the issuing state’s work and indicate that acceptance in databases like NICO/NAPA [7] [6].
6. Exceptions, delegation and areas of tension
The bilateral system permits delegation and reliance on manufacturers’ data and the other authority’s reviews, which has been criticized after events such as the 737 MAX crashes; Canadian parliamentary review and stakeholder voices urged less automatic reliance and called for review of rules like the FAA’s Changed Product Rule, highlighting a tension between efficiency through mutual recognition and the need for independent scrutiny [5] [8].
7. Conversions, maintenance approvals and ongoing modernization
Beyond design approvals, the BASA/TIP framework extends to production and maintenance approvals and even pilot-license conversions via documented procedures (e.g., FAA AC 61-135A for pilot certificate conversions), and both authorities continue projects—like the Validation Improvement Roadmap and internal audits—to modernize processes and reduce unnecessary duplication while maintaining oversight [9] [4] [10].
Conclusion: a system of reciprocal trust with technical guardrails
The formal process is a layered legal and technical framework: BASA defines the relationship, TIP and CATA documents specify procedures and accepted methodologies, and national practices (TCCA’s NAC, FAA orders) implement validation, with ongoing efforts to harmonize and periodic political and expert scrutiny when the balance between delegation and independent verification is questioned [2] [3] [4] [5].