Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-1895; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-01240-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) 2022-08-08, which applies to certain Airbus SAS Model A318-111, -112, -121, -122 airplanes; Model 319-111, -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 A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. This action revises the NPRM by adding requirements for certain airplanes. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. Since these actions would impose an additional burden over that in the NPRM, the FAA is reopening the comment period to allow the public the chance to comment on these changes. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this SNPRM by April 4, 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-2024-1895; 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 EASA material identified in this proposed AD, 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> • 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; telephone 206-231-3667; 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-2024-1895; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-01240-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; telephone 206-231-3667; 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 AD 2022-08-08, Amendment 39-22011 (87 FR 23755, April 21, 2022) (AD 2022-08-08), for certain Airbus SAS Model A318 series airplanes; 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. AD 2022-08-08 requires repetitive special detailed inspections of certain areas and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA issued AD 2022-08-08 to address cracks in the double joggle areas at frame (FR) 16 and FR20, right-hand and left-hand sides, which, if not detected and corrected, could reduce the structural integrity of the fuselage. The FAA issued an NPRM to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD to supersede AD 2022-08-08 that would apply to certain Airbus SAS Model A318 series airplanes; 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. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 24, 2024 (89 FR 59857). The NPRM was prompted by an MCAI issued by The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA issued AD 2023-0212, dated December 6, 2023 (EASA 2023-0212), to correct an unsafe condition. The NPRM proposed to continue to require repetitive special detailed inspections for cracking of double joggle areas at FR16 and FR20, right-hand and left-hand sides, and applicable on-condition actions (repair). The NPRM also proposed to provide an optional modification of the double joggle area that would terminate the repetitive inspections, and add airplanes to the applicability. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since the NPRM Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued the NPRM, EASA superseded AD 2023-0212 and issued EASA AD 2024-0217, dated November 18, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0217) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that EASA AD 2023-0212 incorrectly terminated the AD-mandated repetitive inspections for all the Airbus repair instructions; only those in which the termination of the AD mandated inspection was explicitly written in the Airbus approved instructions should have been terminated. Therefore, additional requirements are necessary for airplanes that have been repaired after accomplishment of ALI tasks 531153-02 or 531155-02. The MCAI applies to certain Airbus SAS Model A318-111, -112, -121, -122 airplanes; Model 319-111, -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 A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. The FAA is proposing this AD to address reports that, during inspections accomplished as specified in certain airworthiness limitation items (ALIs), cracks were detected in the double joggle areas at frame (FR) 16 and FR20 in the nose forward fuselage. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in reduced structural integrity of the fuselage. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-1895. <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 an additional comment from American Airlines. The following presents the FAA's response. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Require New EASA AD</HD> In the proposed AD, the FAA would have required compliance with EASA AD 2023-0212 (with specified exceptions). American Airlines stated that EASA issued proposed AD (PAD) 24-085 to supersede EASA AD 2023-0212. American Airlines requested that the FAA amend the proposed AD to require compliance with the new EASA AD to ensure that operators and the FAA are aligned with the latest EASA requirements. The FAA agrees with American Airlines' request. This SNPRM would require the actions specified in EASA AD 2024-0217 including the additional requirements previously described relating to the terminating action for the repe ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━