The EFB mounting rules are the part of the EFB framework that crews meet physically, every sector, with their hands. A portable EFB is, in the regulator’s eyes, a portable electronic device — a loose object in the flight deck — and loose objects have to be controlled. The Acceptable Means of Compliance to CAT.GEN.MPA.141(a) sets out exactly when you may use one.

It is a short provision with a hard edge, and it is worth understanding rather than memorising, because the moments it governs are the moments when there is no time to look anything up.

The EFB mounting rules: a conditional permission

The permission is conditional. A portable EFB may be used in all phases of flight, including the critical ones, provided it is secured to a certified mount, or securely attached to a viewable stowage device, in a manner that allows its use. The mount is what converts a loose tablet into legitimate flight-deck equipment. That is why operators specify particular mounts and positions — it is the condition on which in-flight use depends.

Read the whole sentence, not the first half

Crews tend to remember “may be used in all phases of flight” and forget the clause that earns it. The provision has three parts, and all three must hold: the device is secured to a certified mount, or securely attached to a viewable stowage device; the securing is done in a manner that allows its use; and it is that secured state, not the device itself, which carries the permission.

The third element is the one worth dwelling on. The permission attaches to a configuration, not to a piece of equipment. The same tablet, in the same flight deck, on the same sector, is either legitimate flight-deck equipment or a loose object depending entirely on whether it is properly secured at that moment. Nothing about the hardware changes when a pilot lifts it off the mount. Its regulatory character does.

Why operators are prescriptive about mounts and positions

Flight ops departments are sometimes accused of being fussy about which mount is fitted and where. The fussiness is not preference. Because in-flight use depends on the device being secured to a certified mount or a viewable stowage device, the mount is not an accessory bought on convenience — it is the item on which the whole permission rests. In our experience this is also where fleets drift fastest: a mount is replaced during maintenance, a bracket is substituted because the original is on backorder, a position is quietly adjusted because a crew found it easier to read. Each looks trivial and each touches the condition.

When the EFB must be stowed

The other side of the rule is just as important. A portable EFB that is not secured for use — simply handheld, resting on your lap, not properly mounted — must be stowed during the critical phases of flight: take-off and initial climb, approach and landing, and taxi where the operator defines it. Those are the high-workload, low-margin moments when you cannot afford a distraction or a sliding device.

The states in plain terms

There is no third column. The awkward middle ground crews invent for themselves — wedged against the sidewall, tucked under a strap, balanced somewhere it has not slid from yet — is not a state the provision recognises. It is the unsecured state with a story attached.

Taxi is the phase that catches people

Take-off and initial climb, approach and landing announce themselves. Taxi does not, and taxi is where the operator’s own definition governs. It is also, in our experience, the phase in which unsecured EFB use is most normalised: a chart being reviewed, a message being read, a figure being checked while the aircraft is moving on a live manoeuvring area. If your operations manual defines taxi as a critical phase, the same discipline applies there as on the roll — and if you are not certain how your operator has defined it, that is a question worth resolving on the ground rather than in the flight deck.

Three hazards, removed at once

The reason EASA is so firm about a mere tablet returns to the core obligation: the EFB must not adversely affect the aircraft or your ability to operate it. A loose device is a genuine hazard on three counts — it can become a projectile in turbulence or a rejected take-off, it can jam a flight control if it slides into the control run, and it can steal attention at exactly the wrong moment. Securing or stowing the EFB removes all three at once.

It is worth naming those three separately, because crews tend to weigh only the third. Distraction is the hazard people feel, and it is the one they believe they can manage through professionalism. The other two are indifferent to how disciplined you are. A device that slides into a control run during a rejected take-off does not care that the pilot was not looking at it, and a tablet accelerating across a flight deck in turbulence is a mass, not a distraction. Discipline mitigates one hazard out of three. The mount mitigates all three.

What we would expect an inspector to look at

Little of this is assessed from documents. We would expect attention to fall on the aircraft and on habits: whether the mounts fitted are the ones the operator specifies, whether the position genuinely allows use without obstructing anything, whether crews can state their operator’s definition of taxi as a critical phase, and whether stowage is somewhere the device can actually be secured rather than a nominal location nobody uses. A well-written procedure and a tablet living on the glareshield are not a compliant operation.

Make it a habit that needs no thought

Mounted and in view when in use, stowed when it is not properly secured. That is the whole discipline, and its value is that it survives fatigue, weather and a busy frequency, which more elaborate rules do not.

Both primary sources are worth having open when you write or review the relevant procedures: Regulation (EU) 965/2012 on EUR-Lex and the EASA Easy Access Rules library, where the rule and its AMC sit together.

Related reading

The obligation these EFB mounting rules serve is explained in what EASA actually requires of an electronic flight bag. Which applications you are looking at while mounted is a question of type A and type B classification. The verification that type B output demands is covered in the gross-error check, and the degraded case in when the EFB fails. The approval and administration framework is set out in our guide to EFB operational approval, and the postholder route through it is the Raven EFB Administrator course.

Frequently asked questions