Technical Translation in Charleroi: Sonaca, AGC Glass, BSCA and Aviation Documentation

Charleroi concentrates some of the most demanding industries in terms of technical documentation: Sonaca supplies structural equipment for Airbus and Boeing, AGC Glass runs its glass R&D from Gosselies, and the BSCA manages regular air traffic subject to EASA and ICAO standards. Technical translation in Charleroi must meet these three worlds - aeronautics, glass chemistry and aviation - with uncompromising terminological and regulatory precision.

Industrial Charleroi: aeronautics, glassmaking and aviation

The Charleroi region is not only a city of reconversion: it is an active aerospace hub of which Sonaca (Société Nationale de Construction Aérospatiale)is the flagship. Located in Gosselies, on the BSCA site, Sonaca designs and manufactures aeronautical structures - leading edges, fairings, nacelles - for the Airbus A320, A330 and A350 programmes as well as the Boeing 737 and 787. This Tier 1 subcontractor position involves massive document exchanges: maintenance manuals, non-conformity procedures, technical definition reports, certification dossiers. Everything must be translated into English, sometimes into Spanish or Mandarin depending on the programme partners.

AGC Glass Europe, whose global R&D centre is located in Gosselies, generates another type of technical documentation: safety data sheets for glass compounds, patents on surface treatments (self-cleaning glass, solar control glass), float glass process specifications. These documents are subject to the REACH (EC 1907/2006) regulation and must be available in the 23 official languages of the EU for the European markets.

Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) constitutes a third focus of documentary needs: airport safety procedures compliant with ICAO Doc 9859(Safety Management System), NOTAM (Notice to Air Men), airport operator manuals subject to EASA Part AGA. The operational documentation must be translated into English (the language of international civil aviation) and sometimes into Dutch for the ground staff.

Added to this fabric are the Centre de Recherches Métallurgiques (CRM), whose Charleroi-Liège activities generate standardised test reports (EN 10025 steels, EN ISO 6892 tensile), Faurecia (automotive equipment, Gosselies site), certified IATF 16949, as well as EPC projects entrusted to players such as Tecnimont in regional chemical engineering.

Sonaca aeronautical documentation: AMM, CMM and EASA certification

Aeronautical documentation is the most demanding category in terms of technical translation. The Aircraft Maintenance Manuals (AMM) and Component Maintenance Manuals (CMM) produced or used by Sonaca are structured according to the ATA 100 standard (or its successor ATA iSpec 2200), which imposes a standardised document format: numbered chapters, cross-references, CAUTION/WARNING/NOTE alerts with a strict hierarchy.

Aeronautical certification under EASA Part 21 (design) and EASA Part 145 (maintenance) imposes very precise documentary traceability requirements. Every revision of a manual must be documented, dated, signed and translated with respect for the source formats. The applicable quality management system is theAS9100 standard (Aerospace quality management), revision D since 2016, which integrates the specific requirements of the aerospace sector beyond the ISO 9001 base.

For translations of aeronautical documentation linked to Airbus or Boeing programmes, Sonaca's partners must often comply with reference terminologies dictated by the prime contractor (Airbus AIPI, Boeing D6-XXXX series). Our technical translators have access to these terminological reference bases and systematically apply the official terminology of the programmes concerned.

REACH SDS and AGC Glass glassmaking documentation

AGC Glass Europe produces hundreds of references of glass products (float glass, laminated glass, tempered glass, solar control glazing) many of which involve chemical surface treatments. These treatments generate safety data sheets (SDS) subject to the REACH Annex II regulation, amended by the EC 453/2010 regulation, now consolidated in the EU 2015/830 regulation.

A compliant REACH SDS includes 16 mandatory sections: product identification, hazard identification, composition, first aid, fire-fighting measures, measures in case of spillage, handling and storage, exposure control / personal protection, physical and chemical properties, stability, toxicological information, ecological information, disposal, transport, regulation, other information. Each section uses precise terminology, standardised by the ECHA (European Chemicals Agency), which publishes regularly updated drafting guides.

For CMR compounds (carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic) potentially present in glass surface treatments, section 8 (exposure control) and section 11 (toxicological information) require particular precision. The occupational exposure limit values (OELVs) differ from one country to another and must be adapted to the target language with the correct national values.

BSCA airport procedures and ICAO/EASA standards

International civil aviation operates in English, but the operational documentation of the BSCA must cover all stakeholders: controllers, apron staff, airport firefighters, handling agents. The translation of airport procedures requires mastery of the ICAO vocabulary (Annex 14 - Aerodromes), the Eurocontrol procedures and the regulatory framework EASAapplicable to aerodrome operators.

The SMS (Safety Management System) compliant with the ICAO Doc 9859imposes documentation structured into four components: safety policy and objectives, risk management, safety assurance, safety promotion. Each component generates procedures, forms and reports that must exist in a bilingual version (English + national language) for EASA audits.

Timeframes and rates for technical translation in Charleroi

Standards and quality: AS9100, IATF 16949 and EN 10025

The Charleroi region concentrates three leading quality reference frameworks that condition the translation of the associated documentation:

• AS9100 revision D (aerospace): Sonaca's quality reference framework requires that quality management documents be controlled, versioned and translated with traceability. Every documentary revision must be validated before distribution, which includes the translated version
• IATF 16949 (automotive): Faurecia and the equipment manufacturers of the Charleroi automotive supply chain work according to this reference framework which requires multilingual PPAPs (Production Part Approval Process), control plans and FMECAs translated for the international OEM customers
• EN 10025 (structural steels): the metallurgical test reports of the CRM, attesting the conformity of the steels to the subcategories EN 10025-2, -3, -4 or -6, are often requested in English or German by the prime contractors of construction and mechanical engineering
• EASA Part 145 (maintenance organisations): the procedures of the approved maintenance organisation (MOE, Maintenance Organisation Exposition) must be available in the working language of the organisation and, on request, in English for EASA audits

Knowledge of these normative systems cannot be improvised: our technical translators specialised in these fields have a basic training in engineering or applied sciences, supplemented by sector experience. They keep their knowledge up to date during normative revisions, in particular during major transitions such as the move from AS9100 revision C to D, or the adoption of the Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 replacing the directive 2006/42/EC.