Special Conditions: Aerocon Engineering Company, Airbus Model A330-300 Series Airplane; Lower Deck Crew Rest Compartment Installation

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2023-2251; Special Conditions No. 25-865-SC]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Special Conditions: Aerocon Engineering Company, Airbus Model A330-300 Series Airplane; Lower Deck Crew Rest Compartment Installation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final special conditions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> These special conditions are issued for the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane. This airplane as modified by Aerocon Engineering Company (Aerocon) will have a novel or unusual design feature when compared to the state of technology envisioned in the airworthiness standards for transport category airplanes. This design feature is an installation of a lower deck crew rest compartment (LDCRC) under the passenger cabin floor in the cargo compartment. The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. These special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing airworthiness standards. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective August 22, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Daniel Jacquet, Cabin Safety, AIR-624, Technical Policy Branch, Policy and Standards Division, Aircraft Certification Service, Federal Aviation Administration, 2200 South 216th Street, Des Moines, Washington 98198; telephone and fax (206) 231-3208; email <E T="03">daniel.jacquet@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On July 5, 2022, Aerocon applied for a supplemental type certificate for the installation of a LDCRC in the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane. The Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane is a twin-engine, transport-category airplane with a maximum takeoff weight of 533,518 pounds and maximum seating for 440 passengers. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Type Certification Basis</HD> Under the provisions of 14 CFR 21.101, Aerocon must show that the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane, as changed, continues to meet the applicable provisions of the regulations listed in Type Certificate No. A46NM or the applicable regulations in effect on the date of application for the change, except for earlier amendments as agreed upon by the FAA. If the Administrator finds that the applicable airworthiness regulations ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 14 CFR part 25) do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane because of a novel or unusual design feature, special conditions are prescribed under the provisions of § 21.16. Should the applicant apply for a supplemental type certificate to modify any other model included on the same type certificate to incorporate the same novel or unusual design feature, these special conditions would also apply to the other model under § 21.101. In addition to the applicable airworthiness regulations and special conditions, the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane must comply with the fuel-vent and exhaust-emission requirements of 14 CFR part 34, and the noise-certification requirements of 14 CFR part 36. The FAA issues special conditions, as defined in 14 CFR 11.19, in accordance with § 11.38, and they become part of the type certification basis under § 21.101. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Novel or Unusual Design Features</HD> The Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane will incorporate the following novel or unusual design feature: Installation of a LDCRC under the passenger cabin floor in the cargo compartment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion</HD> Section 25.819 applies to lower deck service compartments (including galleys) but is not directly applicable to LDCRC. The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. Special conditions are required for the certification of the LDCRC to supplement part 25. The LDCRC will be located under the passenger cabin floor in the cargo compartment of the Airbus A330-330 model series airplane. It will be removable from the cargo compartment. Occupancy of the LDCRC will be limited to a maximum of eight crew members, and it will only be occupied in flight, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> not during taxi, takeoff, or landing. A smoke detection system, fire extinguishing system, oxygen system, and occupant amenities will be provided. The LDCRC will be accessed from the main deck via a stair house. The floor within the stair house has an access hatch that leads to stairs, which occupants use to descend into the LDCRC. This hatch locks automatically in the open position when fully opened. In addition, there will be an emergency hatch, which opens directly into the main passenger cabin area. The LDCRC also has a maintenance access/ground loading door, which allows access to and from the cargo compartment. The intended use of this door is to allow cargo loading and maintenance personnel to enter the LDCRC from the cargo compartment when the airplane is on the ground, and not moving. The special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing airworthiness standards. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Comments</HD> The FAA issued Notice of Proposed Special Conditions No. 25-23-05-SC for the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane, which was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 13, 2023 (88 FR 86274). The FAA received a response from B/E Aerospace Limited (B/E Aerospace). B/E Aerospace requested the FAA revise special condition (p) (Materials) because it should put the requirement of 14 CFR 25.853(c) into context with the materials used in the construction of the mattress assembly ( <E T="03">e.g.</E> “if more than insignificant amounts of [foam] are used”), because the final rule for § 25.853(c) Amendment 25-59 places emphasis on the materials used in the construction of seat cushion assemblies ( <E T="03">e.g.</E> foams) as the primary reason for enhanced fire protection with fire blocking. B/E Aerospace further states, since the special condition does not go into specific details regarding the construction of the mattress assembly, it is assumed that the proposed mattress assembly will include significant amounts of foam materials which should be shown to comply with the requirements § 25.853(c). If the proposed mattress assembly does not include foam materials (and is similar to a traditional coil-spring mattress with various fabric materials), the requirements of § 25.853(c) appear to be taken out of context with the intent of the standard. The FAA disagrees with B/E Aerospace's comments. Section 25.853 does not make any distinction between “significant” and “insignificant” amounts of foam used in the mattress assembly. B/E Aerospace has not provided any arguments why “insignificant” or small quantities of foam, in the mattress assembly, would not be required to be shown to be compliant with the requirements of § 25.853(c). If any applicant has cushion materials that they believe should not be tested to the requirements of § 25.853(c), they always have the option of discussing the issue with the FAA and if warranted, an exemption or equivalent safety finding can be processed. No changes to the proposed rule wording is required. The special conditions are adopted as proposed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Applicability</HD> As discussed above, these special conditions are applicable to the Airbus Model A330-300 series airplane for which they are issued. Should the applicant apply for a supplemental type certificate to modify any other model included on the same type certificate to incorporate the same novel or unusual design feature, these special conditions would apply to the other model as well. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> This action affects only certain novel or unusual design feature on one model A330-300 airplane. It is not a rule of general applicability and affects only the applicant who applied to the FAA for approval of these features on the airplane. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 25</HD> Aircraft, Aviation safety, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements. </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority Citation</HD> The authority citation for these special conditions is as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority: </HD> 49 U.S.C. 106(f), 106(g), 40113, 44701, 44702, 44704. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Special Conditions</HD> Accordingly, pursuant to the authority delegated to me by the Administrator, the following special conditions are issued as part of the type certification basis for Airbus Model A330-300 series airplanes as modified by Aerocon Engineering Company. (a) Occupancy of the LDCRC is limited to a maximum of eight. There must be an approved seat or berth able to withstand the maximum flight loads when occupied for each occupant permitted in the crew rest compartment. (1) There must be appropriate placards displayed in a conspicuous place at each entrance to the LDCRC compartment to indicate: (i) The maximum number of occupants allowed. (ii) That occupancy is restricted to crewmembers that are trained in the evacuation procedures for the crew rest compartment. (iii) That occupancy is prohibited during taxi, take-off, and landing. (iv) That smoking is prohibited in the crew rest compartment. (v) That hazardous quantity of flammable fluids, explosives, or other dangerous cargo is prohibited from the crew rest compartment. (vi) That the crew re ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━