Safety

General regulations for ground support equipment (United States)

For aviation ground support equipment ("GSE"), the Federal Aviation Administration refers to Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) 1247 General Requirements for Aerospace Ground Service Equipment, Motorized and Non-motorized. These requirements may be mandatory, depending on who purchases the equipment and whether federal money was used in the purchase. They are certainly the standard to which the industry refers.

This document is not available online, but can be ordered from SAE International, 400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 or online from http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=STD&PROD_CD=ARP1247C

OSHA (United States)

Adaptive places a premium on designing and manufacturing safe products for the ground support equipment market. Central to our designs is a need to ensure compliance with OSHA. We help our customers understand what the regulations require and help them to include these specifications in all equipment that they purchase.

As an example, Adaptive followed Regulations (Standards - 29 CFR) Code of Federal Regulations Occupational Safety and Health Standards, 1910 Subpart D - Walking-Working Surfaces in designing handrails and platforms for our passenger stairs and ramps. We also discussed at length with OSHA representatives how to interpret these standards for this equipment. The stair and ramp handrails are designed to comply with the standards in 1910.23. Often, strengths and specifications exceed OSHA standards.

Please follow the following link to the OSHA regulations: http://www.osha.gov/comp-links.html

Wind safety regulations for ground support equipment (United States)

For aviation GSE, the Federal Aviation Administration refers to Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) 1247 General Requirements for Aerospace Ground Service Equipment, Motorized and Non-motorized.

Section 3.13.1.9.1 of the ARP gives guidance on wind safety for ground support equipment. Consciousness of the costs of wind incidents has increased steadily in the aviation industry. The ARP's approach is to prevent wind accidents by designing wind stability into the equipment.

The ARP reads, "The unit in operating condition, in its most unstable configuration, shall have a minimum stability ratio of at least 1.2 when exposed to a wind load or jet blast of 19.4 lb/ft² (928.9 Pa) (80 mph) (128.7 km/h) applied from the direction most likely to cause instability. It must also withstand wind load of 24.4 lb/ft² (1168.3 Pa) (90 mph) (144.8 km/hr) without overturning."

Adaptive Engineering uses propriety software to ensure our equipment meets the FAA's stringent 90 mph wind load requirement. The Mobilift AX and Express Stairs are fully compliant with the requirement. The Express Ramp can have a 70 or 90 mph wind rating at the buyer's discretion.

Link to this ARP at http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=STD&PROD_CD=ARP1247C

Disabled passenger access regulations (United States)

The Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 (49 USC 41705) governs airlines and airports. This act provides "that no air carrier may discriminate against any otherwise qualified individual with a disability, by reason of such disability, in the provision of air transportation."

The rules that implement the Act are 14 CFR Part 382 Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel. Part 382 covers many disabilities and services. The portion of the rules that applies to the boarding devices like the ones Adaptive Engineering USA LLC makes is Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5220-21B, updated 3/17/00. This document recommends standards for boarding devices; however, if federal money is used to buy the devices, as is often true with airports, the standards are mandatory.

The advisory circular says that airlines and airports in the United States share the responsibility of making airplanes accessible to the disabled traveler. Of course, boarding devices are only required when the plane is boarded from the ground. Jetbridges are not covered in this AC. You can find this document at http://www.faa.gov/regulations/index.cfm Choose the Advisory Circular option, which will allow you to search by AC number.

Note that the DOT is the process of developing a Notice of Proposed Rule Making, expected to be out very soon. This is a draft for comment which will extend the current rules for disabled travelers on domestic flights to international flights which begin or end in the US. Once the NPRM comes out, there will be a comment period for interested people and organizations to respond. We will post a link to the document when it's available.