Originally Posted by
Cubdriver
Good points Rick. I always wondered what mechanism keeps foreign-certified aircraft out of the US airspace system, and to what level of certainty it operates. There are international standards all the way from the materials used in manufacturing of parts and systems to the necessary equipment on an aircraft that comes here. We see a lot of foreign aircraft here, surely they are not all made to internationally-accepted standards and US compliance as well.
Nothing keeps them out if they're certified in their own country, operated by a foreign airline, under ICAO rules and not blacklisted by the destination country. Not a big issue in the US since most countries need widebodies to even reach North America, and most of those were built in the west anyway. But aeroflot can and has operated Ilyushin products to/from the US...
But in order to sell the aircraft to a US airline and register them with an N-number they need FAA certification. Ditto for EU and EASA, etc, etc. FAA/EASA certification is highly reciprocal, and having one of those is the "gold standard" for world-wide commercial viability