Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-1702; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00067-T]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is revising a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to supersede Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2021-25-14, which applies to all Airbus SAS Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, and -133 airplanes; Model A320-211, -212, -214, -216, -231, -232, and -233 airplanes; and Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, and -232 airplanes. This action revises the NPRM by adding a prohibition against accomplishing a repair using certain structural repair manual (SRM) tasks. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. Since these actions would impose an additional burden over those in the NPRM, the FAA is requesting comments on this SNPRM. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this SNPRM by March 31, 2025. </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-2024-1702; or in person at Docket Operations between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The AD docket contains the NPRM, this SNPRM, the mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI), any comments received, and other information. The street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) material identified in this SNPRM, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; telephone +49 221 8999 000; email <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website <E T="03">easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find this material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-1702. • 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Timothy Dowling, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5102; email: <E T="03">Timothy.P.Dowling@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-2024-1702; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00067-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 SNPRM. <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 SNPRM 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 SNPRM, 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 SNPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Timothy Dowling, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5102; email: <E T="03">Timothy.P.Dowling@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 an NPRM to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD to supersede AD 2021-25-14, Amendment 39-21858 (86 FR 72171, December 21, 2021) (AD 2021-25-14), that would apply to all Airbus SAS Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, -133, 151N, -153N, and -171N airplanes; Model A320-211, -212, -214, -216, -231, -232, -233, -251N, -252N, -253N, -271N, -272N, and -273N airplanes; and Model A321-211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 3, 2024 (89 FR 55123). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0027, dated January 25, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0027), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA AD 2024-0027 stated new investigation results highlighted that inspections must be applied to all models of A319, A320 and A321 airplanes in an affected configuration, and the associated compliance time must be adapted to these configurations. It was determined that fatigue cracking may occur in affected areas on airplanes having Sharklets installed during production or in service. This condition, if not detected and corrected, could lead to crack initiation and propagation, possibly resulting in reduced structural integrity of the wings. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to continue to require the actions in AD 2021-25-14 and to require expanding the applicability to include new engine option (NEO) airplanes and accomplishment of the required actions within updated compliance times, as applicable to airplane configuration. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since the NPRM Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued the NPRM, EASA superseded EASA AD 2024-0027 and issued EASA AD 2024-0230, dated December 2, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0230) (also referred to as the MCAI), to correct an unsafe condition for all Airbus SAS Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, -133, -151N, -153N, and -171N airplanes; Model A320-211, -212, -214, -215, -216, -231, -232, -233, -251N, -252N, -253N, -271N, -272N, and -273N airplanes; and Model A321-211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. Model A320-215 airplanes are not certificated by the FAA and are not included on the U.S. type certificate data sheet; this proposed AD therefore does not include those airplanes in the applicability. The MCAI states that since AD 2024-0027 was issued, it was identified that Airbus published certain SRM tasks at revision dated May 2024, removing instructions linked to steps 2 to 9 and aligning the compliance time with the EASA AD 2024-0027 for all the related SRM tasks. In addition, SRM tasks 57-21-11-300-010, 57-21-11-300-021 and 57-21-11-300-025 were deactivated at revision dated August 2023, and should no longer be used. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-1702. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received a comment from Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from Delta Air Lines (Delta). The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Add Exceptions</HD> Delta requested the inclusion of an exception in paragraph (h) of the final rule to correct the meaning of “Steps 2 to 9” as stated in paragraph (5) of EASA AD 2024-0027. Delta stated the meaning of “Steps 2 to 9” in paragraph (5) is not readily evident due to a conflict between the note included in paragraph (5) of EASA AD 2024-0027 and later revisions of Airbus A319-A320-A321 SRM, which has had the bushing oversize step numbering deleted from the referenced SRM repair. Delta also requested the inclusion of an exception paragraph in the final rule of allowing operators with A321-200 (CEO [current engine option]) aircraft and A321-200 (NEO ACF [advanced cabin flex]) aircraft, as defined in Appendix 1, Table 1 and Table 2 of EASA AD 2024-0027, to omit the requirements to accomplish certain post-repair inspections at the compliance times specified in paragraph (6) of EASA AD 2024-0027, rather than those in the SRM. Delta stated ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 25k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━