Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2023-1897; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-00921-T; Amendment 39-22692; AD 2024-05-02]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Airbus SAS Model A320-214, A320-216, A320-251N, A320-271N, and A321-253NX airplanes. This AD was prompted by a quality review of the forward cargo door frame-to-fuselage skin panel assembly identified several fastener holes that deviated from the manufacturing requirements. This AD requires a geometrical check of the diameter of certain fastener holes for deviations, and if any deviation is found, repetitive special detailed inspections of the affected area for discrepancies and, depending on findings, accomplishment of applicable corrective actions, as specified in a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD, which is incorporated by reference. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This AD is effective May 8, 2024. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of May 8, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">AD Docket:</E> You may examine the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2023-1897; or in person at Docket Operations between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The AD docket contains this final rule, the mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI), any comments received, and other information. The address for Docket Operations is U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket Operations, M-30, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For material identified in this AD, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; telephone +49 221 8999 000; email <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website <E T="03">easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find this material on the EASA website <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Airworthiness Products Section, Operational Safety Branch, 2200 South 216th Street, Des Moines, WA. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call 206-231-3195. It is also available in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2023-1897. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Timothy Dowling, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; telephone: 206-231-3667; email: <E T="03">timothy.p.dowling@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The FAA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD that would apply to certain Airbus SAS Model A320-214, A320-216, A320-251N, A320-271N, and A321-253NX airplanes. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on October 5, 2023 (88 FR 69110). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2023-0153, dated July 26, 2023 (EASA AD 2023-0153) (also referred to as the MCAI), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. The MCAI states a quality review of the forward cargo door frame-to-fuselage skin panel assembly identified several drillings as deviating from manufacturing requirements, creating oversized fastener holes, which could lead to cracking. This condition, if not addressed, could lead to reduced structural integrity of the fuselage. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require repetitive special detailed inspections of the affected area for discrepancies and, depending on findings, accomplishment of applicable corrective actions, as specified in EASA AD 2023-0153. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2023-1897. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from two commenters. Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) and an individual who both supported the NPRM without change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Additional Changes Made to This AD</HD> Since the NPRM was published, EASA AD 2023-0153 was superseded by EASA AD 2023-0179, dated October 11, 2023 (EASA AD 2023-0179). Since EASA AD 2023-0153 was issued, it has been determined that, depending on inspection findings, no repetitive inspection may be required. EASA AD 2023-0179 also clarified that the initial inspection is a geometrical check of the diameter of certain fastener holes for deviations. The FAA has updated this final rule accordingly by replacing EASA AD 2023-0153 with EASA AD 2023-0179 in all affected paragraphs and added a “Credit for Previous Actions” paragraph to retain the requirements of EASA AD 2023-0153, however the concession identified in EASA AD 2023-0153 was removed in EASA AD 2023-0179. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> This product has been approved by the aviation authority of another country and is approved for operation in the United States. Pursuant to the FAA's bilateral agreement with this State of Design Authority, it has notified the FAA of the unsafe condition described in the MCAI referenced above. The FAA reviewed the relevant data, considered the comments received, and determined that air safety requires adopting this AD as proposed. Accordingly, the FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on this product. Except for minor editorial changes, and any other changes described previously, this AD is adopted as proposed in the NPRM. None of the changes will increase the economic burden on any operator. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Related Service Information Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> EASA AD 2023-0179 specifies procedures for a geometrical check of the diameter of certain fastener holes for deviations, and if any deviation is found, repetitive special detailed inspections of the affected area for discrepancies and, depending on findings, accomplishment of applicable corrective action. The special detailed inspection consists of a rototest inspection for cracking of the forward cargo door frame to fuselage skin panel, and if no cracking is found, checking the fastener hole diameters. Corrective actions include installing oversized fasteners if the fastener hole diameter is less than or equal to the specified nominal diameter, contacting the manufacturer for repair instructions if the fastener hole diameter is greater than the specified nominal diameter, and repairing any cracking by contacting the manufacturer for repair instructions. This material is reasonably available because the interested parties have access to it through their normal course of business or by the means identified in the section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Costs of Compliance</HD> The FAA estimates that this AD affects 8 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,12C,12C,12C"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Cost per product </CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost on U.S. operators</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">42.5 work-hours × $85 per hour = $3,613</ENT> <ENT>$100</ENT> <ENT>$3,713</ENT> <ENT>$29,704</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for the on-condition repairs specified in this AD. The FAA has included all known costs in its cost estimate. According to the manufacturer, however, some or all of the costs of this AD may be covered under warranty, thereby reducing the cost impact on affected operators. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> Title 49 of the United States Code specifies the FAA's authority to issue rules on aviation safety. Subtitle I, section 106, describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII: Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the Agency's authority. The FAA is issuing this rulemaking under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart III, Section 44701: General requirements. Under that section, Congress charges the FAA with promoting safe flight of civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing regulations for practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce. This regulation is within the scope of that authority because it addresses an unsafe condition that is likely to exist or develop on products identified in this rulemaking action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Findings</HD> This AD will not have federalism implications under Executive Order 13132. This AD will not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. For the reasons discussed above, I certify that this AD: (1) Is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, (2) Will not affect intrastate aviation in Alaska, and (3) Will not have a significant economic impact, positive or negative, on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 39</HD> Air transportation, A ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━