Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters (Type Certificate Previously Held by Eurocopter France)

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2542; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-00611-R]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters (Type Certificate Previously Held by Eurocopter France)</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) 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51, which apply to certain Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters. AD 2008-10-01 requires replacing certain part-numbered and serial-numbered spherical thrust bearings. AD 2010-05-51 requires repetitively inspecting the main rotor (M/R) head rotor hub (rotor hub) and, depending on the results, taking corrective action. Since the FAA issued those ADs, the manufacturer revised the airworthiness limitations section (ALS) to incorporate various airworthiness limitations, tasks, and associated thresholds and intervals that were previously contained in service bulletins, as well as incorporate a new task. This proposed AD would require revising the ALS of the existing maintenance manual (MM) or instructions for continued airworthiness (ICAs) and the existing approved maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, as specified in a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD, which is proposed for incorporation by reference. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this NPRM by January 13, 2025. </DATES> <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-2024-2542; 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, the EASA AD, any comments received, and other information. The street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For EASA material identified in this proposed AD, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; phone: +49 221 8999 000; email: <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website: <E T="03">easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find the EASA material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Office of the Regional Counsel, Southwest Region, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call (817) 222-5110. The EASA material is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2542. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Hye Yoon Jang, Aviation Safety Engineer, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (206) 231-3758; email: <E T="03">hye.yoon.jang@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 <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . Include “Docket No. FAA-2024-2542; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-00611-R” 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 the 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 Hye Yoon Jang, Aviation Safety Engineer, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (206) 231-3758; email: <E T="03">hye.yoon.jang@faa.gov.</E> Any commentary that the FAA receives which 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 2008-10-01, Amendment 39-15507 (73 FR 24856, May 6, 2008) (AD 2008-10-01), for Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters with spherical thrust bearings part number (P/N) 7050A3622036 having serial number LK0130, LK0142, LK0155, or LK0158, installed. AD 2008-10-01 was prompted by Direction generale de l'aviation civile France (DGAC), which was the aviation authority for France before the European Aviation Safety Agency, AD F-2006-040, dated February 15, 2006 (DGAC France AD F-2006-040), to address a batch of non-conforming spherical thrust bearings. AD 2008-10-01 requires removing any identified spherical thrust bearing and installing an airworthy spherical thrust bearing. The FAA issued AD 2008-10-01 to prevent failure of a spherical thrust bearing during flight, which, if not addressed, could cause the M/R system to separate from the helicopter, which would be catastrophic. The FAA issued AD 2010-05-51, Amendment 39-16265 (75 FR 22510, April 29, 2010) (AD 2010-05-51), for Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters with a rotor hub P/N C622A1002103, C622A1002104, or C622A1002105, installed. AD 2010-05-51 was prompted by European Aviation Safety Agency, which was the aviation authority for France after the DGAC and before the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, Emergency AD 2010-0026-E, dated February 19, 2010 (European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E), to address failure of a rotor hub attachment area in one of the three drag damper fittings. AD 2010-05-51 requires repetitively inspecting the rotor hub, and depending on the results, sanding the area to inspect for cracks, and replacing the rotor hub if cracks are found. The FAA issued AD 2010-05-51 to prevent failure of a rotor hub, excessive vibrations, loss of an M/R blade, and subsequent loss of control of the helicopter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51 Were Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51, EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (including France), has issued EASA AD 2023-0083, dated April 19, 2023 (EASA AD 2023-0083), to supersede DGAC France AD F-2006-040 and European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E. EASA advises that airworthiness limitations instructions are identified as mandatory for continued airworthiness and that Revision 3 of AH [Airbus Helicopters] EC 120 B Chapter 4 ALS, dated July 18, 2022, was issued to introduce new, or more restrictive tasks, or both, including incorporation of the requirements of DGAC France AD F-2006-040 and EASA Emergency AD 2010-0026-E. Consequently, EASA AD 2023-0083 retains the requirements of DGAC France AD F-2006-040 and European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E and requires accomplishing the actions specified in, and the incorporation into the Aircraft Maintenance Programme (AMP) of, AH [Airbus Helicopters] EC 120 B Chapter 4 ALS, Revision 3, dated July 18, 2022. According to EASA, failure to accomplish these instructions could result in an unsafe condition. You may examine EASA AD 2023-0083 in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2542. Lastly, since the FAA issued AD 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51, Eurocopter France changed its name to Airbus Helicopters; this NPRM reflects that change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2023-0083, which requires replacing components before exceeding their life limits and accomplishing all applicable maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals specified in the ALS as defined within. Depending on the results of the maintenance tasks, EASA AD 2023-0083 requires accomplishing corrective action(s) or contacting AH [Airbus Helicopters] for approved instructions and accomplishing those instructions. Additionally, EASA AD 2023-0083 requires revising the A ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━