Before the handover
Task-card evidence review for lessors preparing a transaction
Ahead of a sale or a redelivery acceptance, this review opens the closed task-card sets behind an aircraft's recent maintenance and verifies each card would survive a counterparty's scrutiny. Cards are checked for mechanic and inspector sign-offs, required independent inspections, legible stamps, and valid references to the maintenance data used. A lessor commissions the work while there is still time to route defective cards back to the operator or MRO for correction. The result is a card-level exception list ranked by how likely each defect is to hold up the transaction.
When this review is needed
- A redelivery is approaching and the lease requires closed work packages to a defined records standard.
- The aircraft is under offer and the buyer's reviewers have asked to sample task cards, so defects need finding first.
- Recent heavy checks were performed at a shop the lessor has not audited and the card quality is unknown.
- An earlier transaction on a sister aircraft stalled on card defects and the portfolio team wants this one screened.
The problem
Closed work packages get certified as complete at check exit and then nobody looks inside them until a transaction forces it. Cards signed by one function but missing the inspection stamp, references to a data revision that had already been superseded, and continuation sheets separated from their parent card all hide inside a package that looks finished from the cover sheet. By the time a buyer's team samples the package, the shop that produced it has moved on to other work and corrections take weeks.
What gets reviewed
- Closed work packages from the review period opened and inventoried card by card
- Sign-off completeness for the required maintenance and inspection functions on each card
- Required inspection items checked for the second signature the task demanded
- References on each card resolved to the maintenance data revision in effect at accomplishment
- Non-routine cards raised from routine tasks traced to their closure
- Card set completeness proven against the work-order task list, including continuation sheets
Scope this review
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What gets validated
- Every card in the package carries the sign-offs its task type required, in the right blocks
- Inspection stamps and authorization numbers are legible and belong to the certifying organization
- The maintenance-data reference on each sampled card matches a revision valid on the accomplishment date
- No card in the closed set remains open, partially signed, or marked deferred without a matching deferral record
- Cards listed on the work order are all present, and no orphan cards appear without a work-order line
Evidence normally required
- Closed work packages for the checks in scope, with work orders and task lists
- The operator's or MRO's stamp and authorization registers, where obtainable
- Maintenance-data revision history covering the accomplishment dates
- The lease records standard or sale agreement records condition
- The non-routine registers raised during the same checks
Common discrepancies
- Required inspection items signed once where the task called for an independent second signature
- Cards referencing a task-card revision superseded weeks before the work was done
- Continuation pages missing from multi-page cards, leaving steps unaccounted for
- A card marked complete whose panel-close step is signed before the inspection that required access
What is at stake
Card defects found by the other side shift the balance of a handover. Each one becomes a negotiating token, acceptance dates slip while corrections are chased through the operator and its MRO, and repeated defects invite the counterparty to widen its sample. On a redelivery, unresolved card findings can carry straight into compensation discussions.
Move from findings to resolution
Move from findings to a documented resolution path.
How the work runs
Build the card inventory
List every card each work order should contain, including non-routines and continuation sheets.
Examine the cards
Check sign-offs, stamps, references, and step completion on each card against its task requirements.
Rank the exceptions
Grade each defect by how a counterparty reviewer would treat it and how hard correction will be.
Route corrections
Package findings so the operator or MRO can locate, correct, and return each card before the deadline.
What the buyer receives
- A card-level exception list ordered by transaction risk
- A completeness matrix mapping every work-order task to its closed card
- A correction request pack formatted for the operator or MRO to action
Who uses the output
- Lessor transaction managers deciding what must be cured before acceptance or closing
- Technical representatives negotiating redelivery conditions with the operator
- Records staff assembling the handover data room with defects already annotated
How the work fits into the transaction or program
Card review is the deepest layer of transaction preparation: status lists summarize what was done, but cards are the evidence the summaries rest on. Findings here feed the redelivery punch list or the sale exception schedule, and the completeness matrix later saves the buyer's reviewers from re-inventorying the packages from scratch.
Jurisdiction-specific considerations
What a complete card looks like depends on the regime that governed the work. Cards executed under 14 CFR Part 43 lean on the certifying mechanic's or repair station's return to service, while EASA Part-145 packages hang together through certificates of release to service and the organization's approved procedures. A review preparing an aircraft for cross-regime transfer flags card conventions the receiving side will read differently.
Regulatory limits
The review assesses documentary quality against the applicable standard and the transaction's records condition. It does not re-certify work, issue or amend any release to service, and offers no judgment on the physical state of the aircraft or the adequacy of the maintenance performed.
What this review does not cover
- Re-performing or physically verifying the maintenance the cards record
- Auditing the MRO's quality system or approvals
- Negotiating redelivery compensation or sale-price adjustments
Specific to this review
- Buyers rarely sample task cards evenly; they weight toward required inspection items and fuel-tank tasks, so a readiness review should weight its sample the same way.
- Correction of a card defect needs the person or organization that did the work, which is why card findings age badly: a shop's stamp holders rotate and memories of a specific card fade within months.
- A package can pass a count-based completeness check and still fail a transaction because the counted cards include unsigned duplicates from a reprint.
- Independent inspection signatures are the single most disputed card element at handover because regimes and operators define the requirement differently.
- Line-maintenance packages fail differently from heavy-check packages: heavy checks fail on inspection stamps and continuation sheets, line packages on missing data references, so both belong in the sample.
Sources
U.S. Government (eCFR). Maintenance recordkeeping content and approval-for-return-to-service requirements, including 43.9, 43.11, and Appendix B.
Federal Aviation Administration. FAA guidance on making and keeping maintenance records and acceptable recordkeeping practices.
European Union / EASA. Continuing airworthiness, maintenance records, CAMO responsibilities, and the airworthiness review process in the EASA system.
U.S. Government (eCFR). Records an owner or operator must keep, including total time in service, current status of life-limited parts, and AD compliance.
Frequently asked questions
How large a sample is enough before a sale?
It depends on what the first pass finds. A clean sample across recent heavy checks supports a lighter touch on line packages; clustered defects in one shop visit argue for opening that package completely. The review sets the sample adaptively rather than fixing a percentage in advance.
Relevant glossary terms
Related pages
Where this fits
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