Part 145 is an approval held by an organisation, not by an individual and not by an aircraft. It permits that organisation to carry out maintenance on aircraft or components within a defined scope, and to issue the certificate of release to service when the work is complete.
A note on the number before going further: Part 145 is the maintenance organisation approval. It is not Part 135, which is a charter operating certificate and describes an entirely different kind of business. The two get swapped surprisingly often, including in software marketing.
What the approval actually covers
An approval is not a blanket permission to work on aircraft. It has a scope, and the scope is the whole point.
It states which aircraft types, which components, and which categories of work the organisation may carry out. It names the facilities. It requires defined procedures, recorded in an exposition, describing how the organisation controls its work. It requires qualified staff holding the entitlements relevant to what they sign for. And it requires the organisation to keep the records proving all of that.
So "we are Part 145 approved" is an incomplete statement on its own. The useful question is always: approved for what?
The confusion with continuing airworthiness
Here is where it gets muddled, and the muddle has real consequences.
Part 145 answers: was the work carried out properly, by a qualified person, under a valid approval?
Continuing airworthiness answers: was that the right work, and is it due again, and can you prove the aircraft is legal to fly today?
Those are different jobs. One is about execution, the other about oversight. An operator needs both, and in many organisations they are performed by different people, sometimes different companies.
They also draw on the same underlying records, which is exactly why keeping them in separate systems creates most of the administrative work an airworthiness team does. That reconciliation burden is the subject of continuing airworthiness management in one system.
For the broader map of how maintenance, repair and overhaul fit together, read what MRO actually means in aviation.
What this means for the records
If the two functions are separate but share a record, then the record has to serve both without being maintained twice.
The maintenance organisation needs to show what was done, by whom, under what authorisation, with which parts, and what was certified at the end. The continuing airworthiness function needs to show that the task was required, that it was carried out within its interval, and that the compliance position on every applicable directive is current as a result.
Those are two views of one event. When they live in two systems, somebody spends their week making them agree, and the gap between reconciliations is where an auditor finds things.
When the certificate, the task it closed, the directive it satisfied and the evidence behind it are the same object seen from different angles, there is nothing to reconcile. The signature side of that is covered in what a certificate of release to service commits you to, and the daily capture in the digital logbook and defect management.
Common questions
What is Part 145?
Part 145 is the approval held by an organisation permitted to carry out maintenance on aircraft or components within a defined scope, and to issue the certificate of release to service when that work is complete. The approval specifies which aircraft types, components and categories of work are covered, names the facilities, and requires documented procedures, qualified staff and retained records. It is held by an organisation rather than by an individual, and it is distinct from Part 135, which is a charter operating certificate.
What is the difference between Part 145 and CAMO?
Part 145 approves the organisation that performs the maintenance and certifies that it was carried out properly. CAMO, continuing airworthiness management, is the oversight function that determines what maintenance is required and when, and proves the aircraft remains airworthy between visits. Part 145 answers whether the work was done correctly; continuing airworthiness answers whether it was the right work at the right time. An operator needs both, they are frequently performed by different organisations, and they draw on the same underlying records.
