Preserve maintenance task identifiers, effectivity, ATA chapter references and approved terminology when translating aircraft maintenance documentation.
- Structure is part of the content
- Procedure text is instruction, not prose
- Alignment with type documentation
Structure is part of the content
Maintenance documentation is heavily structured — chapter numbering, task identifiers, effectivity and cross-references. Technicians navigate by that structure, and other documents reference it.
A translation that preserves the wording but breaks the numbering or the cross-references produces a manual that is harder to use than the source, which is a safety-relevant outcome rather than a formatting complaint.
ATA numbering is a document-organization convention, not a translation approval. Use the OEM’s specified revision, chapter scheme and controlled manual. Confirm with the operator or maintenance organization which language version personnel are authorized and competent to use; this article does not establish an EASA-wide translation requirement.
Procedure text is instruction, not prose
A maintenance step tells a technician what to do, in what order, with what limits. The translated version may be the only one in front of them.
Imprecision in verbs, sequence markers or qualifiers changes behaviour. Warnings and cautions are handled as a controlled category with consistent rendering and specific attention at QA.
Alignment with type documentation
Terminology should align with the type certificate documentation and with related manuals. Divergence between documents describing the same aircraft creates ambiguity precisely where certainty is required.
Send existing approved manuals and any termbase at kickoff so they act as the authority rather than being reinvented.