Catalogue description Board of Trade and successors: Civil Aviation Division 1 and Civil Aviation Safety Advisers Division, and successors; Registered Files (AP Series)

The records provide information on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), specifically, drafting of CAA regulations; terms of initial debt; control of grant-in-aid; appeals against licensing decisions; payment to the Ministry of Defence for search-and-rescue operations. In addition they record regulations on restrictions on flying; air carriers' liability for death and personal injury of passengers; Civil Aviation aspects of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Bill; the Aerosat (Aeronautical satellite) programme; private pilot licensing and safety control; air accident investigations and air transport of refugee UK passport holders. From 1985, the records are also concerned with the privatisation of the British Airports Authority.

Some files from the EM prefix and LR prefix have been re-registered into the AP prefix BT 245

Board of Trade, Civil Aviation Division, 1967-1970

Department of Trade and Industry, Civil Aviation Division, 1970-1974

Department of Trade, Civil Aviation Divisions, 1974-1976

Department of Trade, Civil Aviation Policy Division, 1976-1983

Department of Transport, Civil Aviation Policy Division 3, 1983-1993

From 2004 Department for Transport

Records seem to have first been raised with the current AP prefix in 1974 by Civil Aviation Division 1 (there was an earlier, unrelated AP prefix which was used by branches of Interdependence, Exports and Electronics Industry Division of the old Ministry of Aviation). The AP prefix was also used by the Civil Aviation Safety Adviser's Division. Civil Aviation Division 1 became Civil Aviation Policy Division in 1976. In 1983, with the transfer of aviation functions into the Department of Transport, the functions became the responsibility of Civil Aviation Divisions 2 and 3 (the latter responsible for the Safety Adviser function) where they remained, though Civil Aviation 3 functions appear to have been absorbed into Civil Aviation 2 around 1994/5 when the former division disappears from the record.