Page 13 - Volume 12 Number 1

MELs and the Part 91 King Air Owner-Operator
You are looking forward to taking your King Air out for a flight – the weather is clear, and your passengers are just as excited to get in the air as you are. However, during your preflight walkaround, you notice that one of your strobe lights is not working. Uh oh! There’s a possibility you won’t be making this flight after all. You start wondering if you are even legal to depart with this inoperative item. We’ll come back to this dilemma, but first let’s dust off the Federal Aviation Regulations and see what they have to say about flying with inoperative equipment.
by Clint Coatney
Figure 1: FAR 91.213 (partial)
A quick review of FAR 91.213 (see
figure 1) reveals that “no person may
take off in an aircraft with inoperative
instruments or equipment installed
unless the following conditions are
met: (1) An approved Minimum
Equipment List exists for that aircraft.
(2) The aircraft has within it a letter of authorization, issued by the FAA Flight Standards district office...”
You’re probably wondering ... “Even for a King Air?” Yes! FAR 91.213 further states that the only time you don’t need to have a Minimum Equipment List (MEL) and still be able to legally fly with inoperative equipment is if you are operating a nonturbine-powered small airplane (see figure 2). The King Air is definitely a turbine-powered airplane, so in order to fly with an item that is inoperative, you’re going to need to operate our aircraft with an MEL.
“MEL” is short for Minimum Equipment List, but the name is a little misleading because an MEL comprises of many different items besides just a list. It makes more sense to refer to an MEL as a system used to obtain relief from the Federal Aviation Regulations which require that all installed equipment be operative for flight. An MEL will ultimately consist of a Letter of Authorization from the FAA allowing you to utilize an MEL, a list of equipment that may be inoperative, and other documents (Definitions, Preamble, Discrepancy Sheets and Placards) required for a complete MEL system.
For a Part 91 owner-operator, it’s quite common and expected to utilize a Master Minimum Equipment List
JANUARY 2018
Figure 2: FAR 91.213 (partial)
(MMEL) as an MEL. The MMEL contains the items that may be inoperative yet still allow your aircraft to be considered airworthy. The MMEL is developed for a specific make and model of aircraft (i.e., B90, B200) and not for a specific aircraft. It lists the required procedures that must be followed to operate with the inoperative equipment. The bulk of the MEL is contained in this document.
Figure 3: An example of an MMEL that can be found by searching faa.gov.
MMELs can be found at faa.gov by doing a simple search for “MMEL” (see figure 3). For many pieces of equipment listed in the MMEL, if the equipment is inoperative the item is deferred (or “MEL’d” in pilot speak) in a pretty straightforward manner. But, for others, there may be some “O” and/or “M” procedures that must be followed before the
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 11