Q1248. What aviation rules govern aircraft airworthiness safety inspection report translations?

Answered by the NYC Visa & Translation certified translation team

Aircraft airworthiness and safety inspection report translations operate inside the aviation safety regime, where the documents' regulatory status controls the translation's handling. The document types: the certificate of airworthiness and its supporting records (the aircraft's continuing airworthiness records — the logbooks, the maintenance records, the AD and SB compliance status), the inspection reports (the scheduled checks, the pre-purchase inspections, the damage assessments), and the regulator's documents (CAAT's certificates and the foreign authority's — the FAA's, EASA's). The regulatory baseline: ICAO's framework makes English the aviation working language, and the maintenance records of internationally operated aircraft are typically in English already — the translation need arises for the records of domestically operated aircraft, for the regulator's or the court's use, and for the parties in a transaction or a dispute who work in Thai. The translation discipline: the airworthiness directives and service bulletins are referenced by their exact identifiers (the AD numbers, the SB numbers — transcribed, never translated); the part numbers and serial numbers are transcribed exactly (a part number error in a maintenance record is a traceability break); the life limits and the cycles/hours figures are transcribed with units preserved; and the inspection findings' severity classifications keep their exact ranking. Points that matter: the records' completeness is itself an airworthiness issue (a gap in the records affects the aircraft's value and its legal operation — the translation accounts for every page, including the blank and the illegible); for a pre-purchase inspection, the buyer's technical adviser works from the translation and the original together; and CAAT's requirements for the specific purpose are confirmed before commissioning. Practice points: use translators with aviation maintenance documentation experience.