Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2144; Project Identifier AD-2024-00424-T]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA proposes to supersede Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2022-15-06, which applies to all The Boeing Company Model 777-200, -200LR, -300, -300ER, and 777F series airplanes. AD 2022-15-06 requires disconnecting certain connectors and capping and stowing the wires that had been attached to the affected transorb modules. Since the FAA issued AD 2022-15-06, the agency has determined additional connectors are affected. Also, a replacement has been developed to address the unsafe condition, which would terminate the existing actions. This proposed AD would continue to require the actions specified in AD 2022-15-06 and would require those actions for additional connectors. This proposed AD would also require determining if affected transorb modules are installed, replacing or testing affected transorb modules, and applicable on-condition actions. This proposed AD would also prohibit the installation of affected parts. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this proposed AD by November 12, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, using the procedures found in 14 CFR 11.43 and 11.45, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> 202-493-2251. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> 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">Hand Delivery:</E> Deliver to Mail address above between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">AD Docket:</E> You may examine the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2144; 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 NPRM, any comments received, and other information. The street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For the material identified in this proposed AD, contact Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Contractual & Data Services (C&DS), 2600 Westminster Blvd., MC 110-SK57, Seal Beach, CA 90740-5600; telephone 562-797-1717; website <E T="03">myboeingfleet.com.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Airworthiness Products Section, Operational Safety Branch, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call 206-231-3195. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2144. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Raja Vengadasalam, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3859; email: <E T="03">raja.vengadasalam@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites you to send any written relevant data, views, or arguments about this proposal. Send your comments to an address listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2024-2144; Project Identifier AD-2024-00424-T” at the beginning of your comments. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. The FAA will consider all comments received by the closing date and may amend this proposal because of those comments. Except for Confidential Business Information (CBI) as described in the following paragraph, and other information as described in 14 CFR 11.35, the FAA will post all comments received, without change, to <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information you provide. The agency will also post a report summarizing each substantive verbal contact received about this NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Confidential Business Information</HD> CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. If your comments responsive to this NPRM contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to this NPRM, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission containing CBI as “PROPIN.” The FAA will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the FOIA, and they will not be placed in the public docket of this NPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Raja Vengadasalam, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3859; email: <E T="03">raja.vengadasalam@faa.gov.</E> Any commentary that the FAA receives that is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The FAA issued AD 2022-15-06, Amendment 39-22126 (87 FR 47334, August 3, 2022) (AD 2022-15-06), for all The Boeing Company Model 777-200, -200LR, -300, -300ER, and 777F series airplanes. AD 2022-15-06 was prompted by high electrical resistance within the gust suppression sensor (GSS) transorb modules due to corrosion on the transorb threads. AD 2022-15-06 requires disconnecting certain connectors and capping and stowing the wires that had been attached to the affected transorb modules. The FAA issued AD 2022-15-06 to address high electrical resistance in both transorb modules, which can result in two actuator control electronics (ACEs) being exposed to damaging lightning transient voltages in excess of the qualification levels, potentially inducing erroneous or oscillatory outputs to flight control surfaces. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in loss of control of the airplane. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2022-15-06 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2022-15-06, a replacement mitigating action has been developed to address the unsafe condition, which would terminate the existing actions. The preamble to AD 2022-15-06 explains that the FAA considers the requirements “interim action” and may consider further rulemaking. The FAA has now determined that further rulemaking is indeed necessary, and the replacement specified in this proposed AD follows from that determination. In addition, Boeing and several operators notified the FAA that certain bundles/connectors were not identified in AD 2022-15-06. Boeing noted that there are connector designation variances between earlier and later Model 777 airplanes and that bundle/connector W7314/D02099P is on the right-hand side of certain line number airplanes. Boeing stated it sent a Boeing multi-operator message to operators to reduce confusion and recommended bundle/connector W7314/D02099P be identified as an affected bundle/connector. American Airlines, Qatar Airways, and United Airlines also noted that bundle/connector W7314/D02099P is not identified in AD 2022-15-06. United Airlines, All Nippon Airways, and Kilitta Air, LLC, noted that bundle/connector W6313/D02098P is not identified in AD 2022-15-06 but it is identified as a bundle/connector for certain airplanes. The FAA has determined the additional connectors are affected by the unsafe condition. Therefore, this proposed AD would require that operators disconnect the connectors and cap and stow the wires to bundles/connectors W6313/D02098P and W7314/D02099P until the proposed replacement is done as specified in paragraph (h) of this proposed AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">FAA's Determination</HD> The FAA is issuing this NPRM after determining that the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop on other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 777-27A0125 RB, dated February 3, 2023. This material specifies procedures for replacing affected transorb modules with new or serviceable transorb modules or testing affected transorb modules and accomplishing applicable on-condition actions. The on-condition actions include part marking any module that meets certain specifications or replacing any modules that do not meet the specifications. 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 <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed AD Requirements in This NPRM</HD> This proposed AD would retain all requirements of AD 2022-15-06 and would require those actions for additional connectors. This proposed AD would also require determining if affected transorb modules are installed, replacing or testing affected transorb modules, and applicable on-condition actions. This proposed AD would also prohibit the installation of affected parts. For information on the procedures and compliance times, see Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 777-27A0125 RB, dated February 3, 2023, at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2144. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Diff ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 25k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━