Special Conditions: Aerocon Engineering Company, Airbus Model A350-941 Airplane; Forward Lower Lobe Crew Rest Compartment Installation

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-1310; Special Conditions No. 25-873-SC]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Special Conditions: Aerocon Engineering Company, Airbus Model A350-941 Airplane; Forward Lower Lobe Crew Rest Compartment Installation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final special conditions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> These special conditions are issued for the Airbus Model A350-941 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 lobe crew rest (LLCR) compartment located 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 December 13, 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 August 27, 2021, Aerocon applied for a supplemental type certificate for a LLCR installation in the Model A350-941 airplane. The Airbus Model A350-941 airplane is a twin-engine, transport-category airplane with a maximum takeoff weight of 623,908 pounds and maximum seating for 480 passengers. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Type Certification Basis</HD> Under the provisions of 14 CFR 21.101, Aerocon must show that the Airbus Model A350-941 airplane, as changed, continues to meet the applicable provisions of the regulations listed in Type Certificate No. T000631B 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 A350-941 airplane because of a novel or unusual design feature, special conditions are prescribed under the provisions of § 21.16. Special conditions are initially applicable to the model 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 also apply to the other model under § 21.101. In addition to the applicable airworthiness regulations and special conditions, the Airbus A350-941 series airplane must comply with the 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 A350-941 airplane will incorporate the following novel or unusual design feature: The installation of a LLCR 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 forward LLCR compartments. 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 LLCR to supplement part 25. The LLCR will be located under the passenger cabin floor in the forward cargo compartment of Airbus A350-941 model airplanes. It will be the size of three standard airfreight containers and be removeable from the cargo compartment. Occupancy of the LLCR 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 LLCR will be accessed from the main deck via a stair house. The floor within the stair house has an access hatch that leads to the stairs, which occupants use to descend into the LLCR. 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 LLCR 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 LLCR 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. 25-24-04-SC for Airbus Model A350-941 airplanes, which was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on September 11, 2024 (89 FR 73604). The FAA received a response from Airbus Commercial Aircraft (Airbus) requesting the FAA consider Special Conditions No. 25-281-SC as the minimum set of requirements for the design of the A350-941 lower deck crew rest compartment. Airbus request the FAA issue special conditions consistent with previously approved special conditions for similar installations. The FAA agrees with the Airbus response. The limitations and conditions of this special condition are essentially the same as the limitations and conditions listed in special condition number 25-281-SC. The special conditions are adopted as proposed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Applicability</HD> As discussed above, these special conditions are applicable to Airbus Model A350-941 airplanes as modified by Aerocon. 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. Under standard practice, the effective date of final special conditions would be 30 days after the date of publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . However, as the certification date for the Airbus Model A350-941 is imminent, the FAA finds that good cause exists to make these special conditions effective upon publication. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> This action affects only certain novel or unusual design feature on the Airbus 350-941 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 A350-941 airplanes, as modified by Aerocon Engineering Company. The LLCR must meet the below requirements: 1. Occupancy of the forward lower lobe crew rest compartment 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. (a) There must be appropriate placards displayed in a conspicuous place at each entrance to the LLCR compartment to indicate: (1) The maximum number of occupants allowed; (2) That occupancy is restricted to crewmembers trained in the evacuation procedures for the crew rest compartment; (3) That occupancy is prohibited during taxi, take-off and landing; (4) That smoking is prohibited in the crew rest compartment; (5) That hazardous quantities of flammable fluids, explosives, or other dangerous cargo is prohibited from the crew rest compartment. (6) That the crew rest area must be limited to the stowage of crew personal luggage and must not be used for the stowage of cargo or passenger baggage. (b) There must be at least one ashtray located conspicuously on or near the entry side of any entrance, usable in-flight, to the crew rest compartment. (c) There must be a means to prevent passengers from entering the compartment in the event of an emergency or when no flight attendant is present. (d) There must be a means for any door installed between the crew rest compartment and passenger cabin to be capable of being quickly opened from inside the compartment, even when crowding occurs at each side of the door. (e) For all doors installed in the evacuation routes, there must be a means to preclude anyone from being trapped inside the compartment. If a locking mechanism is installed, it must be capable of being unlocked from the out ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━