Airworthiness requirements and the squawk decision

The candidate can teach airworthiness determination, and can make the call themselves when a student walks up with a squawk. The outcome is that they neither launch a broken airplane nor ground a good one.

Both failure modes are real and the second is underrated. An instructor who grounds every airplane with a cosmetic defect teaches students that airworthiness is a feeling, costs the school availability, and eventually gets ignored.

Element 6 is the spine of the lesson. 91.213(d) is a sequence, and a candidate who can run the sequence out loud can handle a squawk they have never seen. One who has memorized a list of acceptable defects cannot.

Both are worked in full, with the reasoning written out rather than asserted. One resolves to no-go and one to go, deliberately, so the lesson teaches a decision rather than a reflex.

Scenario one. Resolves to no-go

A student arrives for a solo cross-country. On preflight they find the landing light inoperative. The flight is planned to land back at base 40 minutes after official sunset.

The reasoning, worked:

1. Is it required equipment for this flight? Check 91.205(c) for night VFR. A landing light is required for aircraft operated for hire. This is a student solo in a rented airplane, so walk the candidate through whether that applies here rather than letting them assume.
2. Regardless of the answer to 1, run 91.213(d): is it on the equipment list as required, required by an airworthiness directive, or required for the kind of operation?
3. Then the judgment the regulation does not make for you: this is a student, on a solo, landing at night, at an airport they have used a handful of times.
4. No-go, and the reason to give the student is not primarily regulatory. It is that a student solo night landing without a landing light is a bad first experience of one.
5. The alternative offered matters as much as the refusal. Move the flight earlier so it lands before sunset. The student flies today.

Scenario two. Resolves to go

The same airplane, next morning. A rear passenger overhead reading light is inoperative. The flight is a local dual instructional flight, day VFR, no passengers.

The reasoning, worked:

1. Not required by 91.205 for day VFR.
2. Run 91.213(d): not on the required equipment list for this operation, not required by an airworthiness directive, not required for the kind of operation.
3. 91.213(d)(3): it must be removed or deactivated and placarded inoperative, or the determination made by a pilot or mechanic that it does not constitute a hazard.
4. Go, with the placard, once the required action is taken and recorded.
5. The teaching point: the airplane is airworthy for this flight. Grounding it would be a defensible-sounding decision that is actually wrong, and it costs a student their lesson.

Instructor: live eCFR. The maintenance records for an actual North Aero airplane, if available. A third scenario prepared but not shared. FAA-S-ACS-25 at AI.III.B.

Candidate: preparation deliverable.

Taught Ground Lesson: yes Meeting title convention: CFI Ground Lesson - L12 Airworthiness and Squawk Decision - <YYYY-MM-DD> Participants: each on their own device, headset, Workspace account Candidate reads their own Session Transcript before the instructor's review Coverage maps to: AI.III.B Fallback if capture fails: instructor attests from contemporaneous notes; the lesson is not lost and is not re-taught for the sake of a recording

1. Teach elements 1 to 6, running 91.213(d) from the live text.
2. Work scenarios one and two out loud, showing the reasoning. Do not give the answers first.
3. Simulated Student role, element 9. A student who wants to fly and is mildly pushing. Not belligerent. The pressure is that they are keen and have paid for the airplane.
4. Give the candidate a third scenario you have prepared, and have them decide it and defend it. Whether it resolves to go or no-go is your choice; pick against whatever the candidate seems to be defaulting to.
5. Critique against standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md.

1. Arrive with the deliverable.
2. Teach the 91.213 decision process to the Simulated Student.
3. Decide a third scenario, unseen, and defend the decision.
4. Offer an alternative where the answer is no-go.
5. Self-critique first.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate teaches the 91.213 decision process as a repeatable sequence, not a list of examples, for about ten minutes.
2. The candidate decides an unseen third scenario and states the reasoning in the order the regulation sets, reaching a defensible go or no-go.
3. Where the decision is no-go, the candidate offers an alternative that lets the student fly or makes clear when they can.
4. The candidate distinguishes the regulatory threshold from North Aero's threshold and says which one is driving their decision.
5. The candidate does not ground a legally airworthy aircraft without saying that is what they are doing and why.
6. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Not applicable. Ground lesson.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation III, Task B.
• From live eCFR: 91.7, 91.203, 91.205, 91.213, 91.405, 91.407, 91.409, 91.417.
• 91.213(d) twice. It is a sequence and you will teach it as one.

Deliverable: Write out the 91.213(d) decision process as numbered steps, in your own words, on one page. Then apply it to one defect you have personally encountered on a preflight, and say what you decided at the time and whether you would decide the same way now.

Used: the two scenarios above, both worked in full with reasoning, one to no-go and one to go.

Needed and not yet available: North Aero's own squawk log, so the third scenario is drawn from defects that have actually occurred on this fleet. Owner: Erick. Until supplied, the instructor supplies the third scenario from experience and should keep the same one across candidates for consistency.

None. This lesson teaches no maneuver.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled. It has none.

Watch for the reflex in either direction. A candidate who grounds everything and a candidate who launches everything have the same underlying problem: they are not running a process.

The third scenario is the real assessment. The two worked ones are teaching.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-4.4, US-4.1, US-3.4
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior; a taught presentation plus a decided scenario
• ✓Common errors listed
• ✓Intervention threshold: not applicable, ground lesson, reason given
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13, against live eCFR
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots: none, and the lesson says so
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Two realistic squawk scenarios, reasoning written out, one resolving to go and one to no-go
• ✓Regulation distinguished from North Aero policy explicitly (US-3.4)
• ✓Carries the Epic 12 capture hooks