Maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alteration organization

This regulation requires Part 135 operators to have adequate organizational structure for maintenance work. If you perform your own maintenance, preventive maintenance, alterations, or required inspections—or contract them out—you must ensure the organization doing the work has sufficient resources and structure to complete it properly.

The key requirement is separation of inspection from other maintenance. When the same organization performs both required inspections and other maintenance work, these functions must be separated organizationally. The person responsible for inspections cannot report to the same supervisor as those doing the actual maintenance work. This separation must occur below the top administrative level—meaning while one executive may oversee both areas, the day-to-day inspection and maintenance teams must have independent chains of command.

This prevents conflicts of interest where mechanics might be pressured to approve their own work or rush inspections to meet maintenance schedules.

*This is a plain-English summary for study only. The official 14 CFR text on this page is controlling — always read the current regulation and consult a CFI.*