FAA lets planes like the Cessna Caravan swap 100-hour inspections for model-specific ones

The Federal Aviation Administration will let owners of single-engine turbine airplanes, such as the Cessna Caravan, replace the standard annual and 100-hour inspections with programs built for their make and model, under a final rule published Tuesday. The change takes effect Jan. 11.

Planes that carry passengers for hire or are used for flight instruction for hire need an inspection every 100 hours of flying. For operators who fly a lot, the FAA said, those inspections often create maintenance problems of their own, because mechanics keep taking parts off, inspecting them and putting them back on. A manufacturer's program would likely be less invasive, the agency said.

The Caravan, a single-engine turboprop, is flown by Alaska regional airlines including Grant Aviation and Bering Air.

Turbine helicopters have had this option since 1989. Single-engine turbine airplanes were left out because they were less common than turbine helicopters at the time, the FAA said. Now more than 4,500 are registered in the U.S.

Under the rule, owners can follow the manufacturer's recommended inspection program, if there is one, and note it in the plane's maintenance records, or write their own program and submit it to the FAA for approval. Switching is voluntary. The annual and 100-hour inspections remain options, as does a progressive inspection, which is done in stages through the year.

One manufacturer estimated that a program built with MSG-3, a method manufacturers use to set scheduled maintenance, could save about $9,492 per plane compared with an annual inspection, in 2024 dollars. The FAA estimates nationwide savings of about $57 million a year averaged over a decade, but that assumes every manufacturer of these planes offers a program, which the rule doesn't require, though the FAA expects most to. The agency also expects inspections tailored to each aircraft to improve safety, though it didn't put a number on that.

The rule also opens those inspection programs to unmanned aircraft, including ones flown by commuter and on-demand operators. And it gives managers of fractional ownership programs, in which several owners share a plane, 96 hours instead of 72 to file mechanical reliability reports, and lets them file electronically.

The FAA proposed the change in January 2024. None of the 21 comments it received opposed the inspection changes. One asked the FAA to review each program more thoroughly and share more safety data. The agency called that outside the rule's scope and said its oversight is sufficient.