A part that arrives is not a part that has been accepted. Between the courier handing over the box and the moment the component goes on the shelf there is a window in which you still have leverage: the carrier is still liable, the seller is still waiting for the money, and nobody has installed anything yet. Once that window closes, a wrong part, a damaged part or a part whose tag does not match its paperwork becomes your problem to argue about rather than theirs to fix.

This is a commercial checklist for aircraft parts receiving inspection, not a regulatory one. It covers what an operator or trader without a dedicated quality department can realistically do in the hour the box is opened, and what to say when something does not line up.

Need a part shipped to your region? Submit an RFQ on Aviatrading and reach verified sellers worldwide.

Why receiving inspection is a commercial decision

Most disputes on cross-border parts purchases are not about fraud. They are about a buyer who signed for a shipment, put it in the store, and only looked at it properly three weeks later when a mechanic needed it. By then the carrier’s claim period has expired, the seller argues the damage happened on your premises, and there is no photograph of the crate as it arrived.

So fix the sequence. The check happens before the part is stored, before the invoice is marked for payment, and before any escrow is released. If you cannot do it on the day, note that on the delivery receipt and keep the shipment sealed until you can.

Three things separate a strong position from a weak one: a dated photograph of the packaging before it was opened, a delivery receipt that reflects what you actually saw, and a written discrepancy note sent the same day. None of them cost anything.

Check the tag against the paperwork, not against the invoice

The invoice says what you ordered. The tag says what you were sent. Comparing the invoice to the purchase order proves nothing about the metal in the box, and it is the most common shortcut in receiving.

Read the part number, serial number, description and stated condition off the physical tag, then look for the same four on the release document that travelled with it. Character for character — a dash in the wrong place or a missing suffix letter can mean a different standard of part. If the seller changed names at some point in its corporate history, the number on the tag still has to match the number on the document; what you are checking is internal consistency, not branding.

Condition deserves its own look. A part described as overhauled in the offer and tagged as serviceable is not a paperwork slip to wave through: the two carry different work scopes and different value. Our guide to release document checks for an operator without a CAMO covers which document should be there in the first place; this step is making sure it describes the item in front of you.

For used serviceable material the question extends backwards. If trace history was part of what you paid for, the documents establishing it should arrive with the part rather than follow later — see traceability on used serviceable material for what a complete chain looks like.

What the physical check covers before you sign

You are not assessing the component’s airworthiness. You are establishing the condition it arrived in, so that any later argument starts from facts.

Check	What you are looking at	What stops acceptance
Outer packaging	Crushing, punctures, water staining, crate repairs in transit	Visible damage with no carrier notation
Seals and tamper evidence	Intact security seals, seal numbers against the shipping documents	Broken or missing seal, number mismatch
Piece count	Number of boxes against the waybill, not against the invoice	Short shipment accepted as complete
Tag present and legible	Part number, serial number, description, condition	No tag, or a tag that contradicts the document
Serial number	Serial on the part itself, where accessible, against the tag	Any mismatch, or an illegible data plate
Preservation	Sealed bag, desiccant, caps and plugs, protective covers	Open bag on an item sold as sealed
ESD protection	Static bag and labelling on avionics and electronic units	Electronics shipped unprotected
Age-sensitive marking	Manufacture or cure date, stated shelf life	Date already past, or no date at all
Dangerous goods marking	Labels and declaration matching the contents	Undeclared battery or chemical in the box
Document set	Release document, any trace or teardown paperwork you paid for	Documents promised but not present

Photograph anything that gives you pause, with the packaging still in frame. A photograph of a damaged component on a clean workbench proves nothing about where the damage happened.

Age-sensitive and shelf-life items

For seals, hoses, elastomers, adhesives, lubricants and batteries, the date that matters is manufacture or cure, not the date the courier delivered the box. A part can be new, correctly tagged and genuinely unused and still be of little practical use if most of its stated life was spent in someone else’s warehouse.

Two practical rules. Make the shelf-life expectation explicit in the enquiry rather than at delivery — ask for the manufacture date and the remaining life before you commit, one of the points our guide to a first enquiry with an overseas supplier treats as standard. Then at receiving, check the marking against what was promised and record the figure you found.

What governs the actual limit is the manufacturer’s documentation and the industry standards the seller cites, not anything a buyer can infer from the packaging. If the marking is absent or unreadable, treat the item as a discrepancy rather than guessing.

Quarantine: where the part goes while the question is open

A part with an open question should not sit on the same shelf as stock that is ready to issue. It does not need an elaborate facility — a clearly labelled, physically separate area is enough, as long as nobody can pick from it by accident.

Label it with the date, the purchase order, and one line on what the problem is. The failure mode is predictable: an item sits in an unlabelled corner, the person who received it moves on, and six weeks later nobody can reconstruct why it was set aside, so it quietly goes back into stock.

Storage conditions matter more in hot and humid climates than most procedures written elsewhere assume. Humidity, direct sun on a store roof and dust ingress will degrade a correctly supplied part while it waits. If a component arrived sealed and you opened the bag only to read the tag, reseal it.

When it does not match: who pays and what to say

Three rules, in order. Do not install it. Do not ship it back without agreement. Do write it down the same day.

Returning a part unilaterally is the most expensive mistake available at this stage: you lose possession, you pay the freight, and you may trigger a restocking charge on an item the seller will argue was correctly supplied. Keep the part, keep it quarantined, and put the discrepancy in writing with photographs attached.

Who pays depends on which category the discrepancy falls into, and it is worth being clear-eyed about them:

Wrong item or wrong condition supplied. The seller’s error, and return freight is normally theirs. Say so plainly in the first message, with the tag and the document side by side.

Transit damage. A carrier matter — which is why the delivery receipt notation and the pre-opening photograph are worth the two minutes they cost. Claim windows are short and counted from delivery.

Documents missing or incomplete. Usually recoverable without returning anything: hold acceptance and payment until the paperwork arrives, which is a far stronger position than accepting on a promise.

Specification mismatch you did not catch at enquiry. Commercially this one is yours, and the honest answer is that it gets solved earlier in the process, not at the loading bay.

This is where the payment mechanism earns its keep. On a transaction with escrow held until the deal closes, the money is still in the middle while a discrepancy is resolved, so the conversation is about fixing the shipment rather than chasing a refund across a border. Sellers who supply correctly lose nothing from it, which is a reasonable filter in itself.

Two habits are worth building. Keep the receiving record with the part for as long as you hold it, because the next person to ask about it will not be you. And if one supplier produces discrepancies repeatedly, treat that as information about the supplier rather than bad luck — a pattern of late or mismatched shipments is the subject of our note on what to do when a supplier misses a delivery date.

Building the receiving inspection into how you buy

An aircraft parts receiving inspection is cheap and sits at the point of maximum leverage, which is an unusual combination. Four things make it work: check the tag against the document rather than the invoice, photograph the packaging before you open it, quarantine anything with an open question, and put discrepancies in writing the same day.

It also starts before delivery. The more of the specification, condition, documentation and shelf life that is fixed in the enquiry, the less there is to discover at the loading bay — and the items most likely to need careful handling on arrival are often those flagged in our guide to dangerous goods in aircraft parts shipments.

If you are sourcing now, post the requirement with its condition and documentation expectations stated up front and let verified sellers respond, or work through the Aviatrading parts catalogue directly. New requests are published as they come in on the Aviatrading Telegram channel, a quick way to see what the market is actually moving.

Questions buyers ask us most

Does an FAA Form 8130-3 mean the part is approved for installation on my aircraft?

No, and this is the most expensive misreading in aircraft parts receiving inspection. FAA AC 20-62E CHG 1 describes the form as an approval for return to service issued by a person authorized under FAA Order 8130.21 (par. 9.a), and par. 9.b(3) states that the use of an authorization tag does not approve the installation of a part on a type-certificated product. Par. 8.b puts the eligibility determination on the installer every time, so a clean tag shortens your check — it does not replace it.

Our supplier is an accredited distributor. Is that enough paperwork?

Accreditation under FAA AC 00-56B is a voluntary program: it means the distributor’s own quality system was audited, not that any individual part is airworthy. AC 20-62E CHG 1 par. 14.b is blunt about the difference — a distributor that is not a production approval holder cannot certify the airworthiness of what it advertises or sells, and it is the installer’s responsibility to ensure airworthiness. Keep asking for the traceability package even from your best-rated vendors.

A used part has arrived and we cannot establish where it came from. What now?

Do not book it into stock as serviceable. AC 20-62E CHG 1 par. 9.b(2) requires that the data used to identify a used part be traceable to a person authorized to perform and approve a return to service, and par. 16 asks for particular caution whenever the origin of a part cannot be established. Par. 15.b points to AC 21-29, current revision D, for reporting a suspected unapproved part; the sequence we follow once a part is actually rejected is set out in what to do when a part fails receiving inspection.