Chairman: Helmuth Hoeller
National Aerospace NDT Boards (NANDTB) have been formed in many countries around the world, but mainly in Europe, as a direct result of European Aerospace Safety Agency (EASA) regulation part 145, which mandates the implementation of European Standard EN 4179 (Aerospace series - qualification and approval of personnel for non-destructive testing) by maintenance organisations subject to the regulation. EN 4179 has recently been revised to prEN 4179: 2014 (available for purchase from ASD - STAN) in order to achieve technical harmonisation with AIA-NAS-410: Rev. 4, which describes a National Aerospace NDT Board as:
“An independent national aerospace organization, representing a nation’s aerospace industry, that is chartered by the participating prime contractors and recognized by the nation’s regulatory agencies to provide or support NDT qualification and/or examination services in accordance with Clause 4.4.2 of the standard."
Clause 4.4.2 states …
“The organization has a constitution, a deciding entity, and governed according to administrative and working procedures. The voting members in the deciding entity are NDT Level 3 personnel and are from participating prime contractors or type certificate holders as a minimum. Other members may be co-opted as voting or non-voting members as necessary to support the NANDTB. Regulatory agencies for civilian and/or defense have the right to be included as observer members.
The Responsible Level 3 may use an NANDTB to:
• Develop training course outlines and training material
• Create examination questions and administer examinations
• Approve outside and/or internal organizations providing training and/or examination services
• Define requirements for qualification of NDT personnel in emerging NDT methods
• Retain written and practical examinations
• Designate Examiners and/or instructors at outside or internal organizations providing training and examination services.
Where an NANDTB is used to provide such services, it shall develop processes and procedures that shall ensure full compliance with the requirements of this standard. The activities, processes, procedures, technique catalogs, etc. undertaken/developed by an NANDTB shall be made available for review by prime contractors and regulatory agencies. For countries where no NANDTB exists, the services of other NANDTB’s may be used, but are not required to do so, unless specified by local or regulatory requirements".
The above effectively mandates the widespread establishment of NANDTBs, and it is recognized that, without some form of harmonizing influence, the various NANDTBs would address the above requirements in diverse ways. Therefore, an open meeting of interested parties was held during the 9th European Conference on NDT in Berlin on 29th September 2006. Following a round table discussion of the pertinent issues, this meeting, which was attended by 31 interested parties, unanimously agreed to establish a European Forum for NANDTB under the umbrella of the European Federation for NDT. This part of the EFNDT website will be an ‘open window’ on the work of the Forum, and will include all published documents, including minutes of meetings.