Special Conditions: Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR Series Airplanes; Dynamic Test Requirements for Single Occupant Oblique Seats at an Installation Angle of 49 Degrees With Airbags and 3-Point Restraint or Pretensioner Restraint Systems

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2570; Notice No. 25-24-05-SC]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Special Conditions: Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR Series Airplanes; Dynamic Test Requirements for Single Occupant Oblique Seats at an Installation Angle of 49 Degrees With Airbags and 3-Point Restraint or Pretensioner Restraint Systems </SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed special conditions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action proposes special conditions for the Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes. These airplanes 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 a single-occupant oblique seat with an airbag and 3-point or pretensioner restraint system positioned at a 49-degree angle from the cabin centerline. The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. These proposed 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> Send comments on or before January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by Docket No. FAA-2024-2570 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">Federal eRegulations Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Shannon Lennon, Cabin Safety Section, AIR-624, Technical Policy Branch, Policy and Standards Division, Aircraft Certification Service, Federal Aviation Administration, 2200 South 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198; telephone (206) 231-3209; email <E T="03">Shannon.Lennon@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites interested people to take part in this rulemaking by sending written comments, data, or views. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposed special conditions, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. The proposed special conditions address single-occupant oblique seats with airbags and 3-point restraint or pretensioner restraint systems at a 49-degree installation angle. The proposed special conditions substantially align with previously issued conditions (Special Conditions Nos. 25-811-SC and 25-861-SC) but were adapted to align with the combination of the novel 49-degree angle installation along with the potential use of a pretensioner restraint system. Delivery of these airplanes with this novel or unusual design feature is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2025. While the comment period provided by the FAA for proposed special conditions has typically been thirty days, the FAA is providing twenty days in this instance due to the substantive similarity of these conditions with the terms of previously issued special conditions, and due to the pendency of the anticipated delivery date for the affected airplane models, per the criteria in 14 CFR 11.38. The FAA will consider all comments received by the closing date for comments and will consider comments filed late if it is possible to do so without incurring delay. The FAA may change these special conditions based on the comments received. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Privacy</HD> Except for Confidential Business Information (CBI) as described in the following paragraph, and other information as described in title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) 11.35, the FAA will post all comments received without change to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information you provide. The FAA will also post a report summarizing each substantive verbal contact received about these special conditions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Confidential Business Information</HD> Confidential Business Information (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 these special conditions contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to these special conditions, 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 the indicated comments will not be placed in the public docket of these proposed special conditions. Send submissions containing CBI to the individual listed in the For Further Information Contact section above. Comments the FAA receives, which are not specifically designated as CBI, will be placed in the public docket for these proposed special conditions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On April 6, 2022, Airbus SAS applied for an amendment to Type Certificate No. A28NM for the installation of a single-occupant oblique seat with an airbag and 3-point or pretensioner restraint system, positioned at a 49-degree angle from the cabin centerline in new Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes. Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes, which are derivatives of the Model A321 currently approved under TC no. A28NM, are twin-engine, transport category airplanes with a maximum passenger capacity of 244. The maximum takeoff weight of the Airbus Model A321 neo ACF is approximately 213,848 pounds, while the Airbus Model A321 neo XLR has a maximum takeoff weight of approximately 222,667 pounds. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Type Certification Basis</HD> Under the provisions of 14 CFR 21.101, Airbus SAS must show that the Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes, as changed, continue to meet the applicable provisions of the regulations listed in Type Certificate No. A28NM 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 Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes 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 type certificate for that model be amended later to include any other model that incorporates the same novel or unusual design feature, or should any other model already included on the same type certificate be modified 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, Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes 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> Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplanes will incorporate the following novel or unusual design feature: single-occupant oblique seats with airbag devices and 3-point restraints or a pretensioner restraint system installed at 49 degrees relative to the aircraft cabin centerline. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion</HD> Title 14 of the CFR, § 25.785(d) requires that each occupant of a seat installed at an angle of more than 18 degrees relative to airplane cabin centerline, must be protected from head injury using a seatbelt and an energy-absorbing rest that supports the arms, shoulders, head, and spine, or using a seatbelt and shoulder harness designed to prevent the head from contacting any injurious object. The proposed Airbus Model A321 neo ACF and A321 neo XLR airplane's single occupant oblique seat installation with airbag devices and 3-point restraint or pretensioner restraint system is novel such that the current requirements do not adequately address airbag or pretensioner devices and protection of the occupant's neck, spine, torso, and legs for seating configurations that are positioned at an angle of 49 degrees from the airplane centerl ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━