Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2410; Project Identifier AD-2024-00509-T; Amendment 39-22998; AD 2025-06-10]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain The Boeing Company Model 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. This AD was prompted by possible horizontal stabilizer pivot pin lockring, outer pivot pin, and outboard spacer misalignment at final assembly. This AD requires inspection of the left-side and right-side horizontal stabilizer pivot pin assemblies for misalignment and incorrect gapping, and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This AD is effective May 2, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of May 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">AD Docket:</E> You may examine the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2410; 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 final rule, any comments received, and other information. The address for Docket Operations is 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">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For Boeing material identified in this AD, contact Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Contractual & Data Services (C&DS), 2600 Westminster Blvd., MC 110 SK57, Seal Beach, CA 90740-5600; telephone 562-797-1717; website <E T="03">myboeingfleet.com.</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. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2410. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joseph Hodgin, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3962; email: <E T="03">Joseph.J.Hodgin@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The FAA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD that would apply to certain The Boeing Company Model 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on November 22, 2024 (89 FR 92612). The NPRM was prompted by possible misalignment, at final assembly, of the horizontal stabilizer pivot pin lockring, outer pivot pin, and outboard spacer. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require inspection of the left-side and right-side horizontal stabilizer pivot pin assemblies for misalignment and incorrect gapping, and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA is issuing this AD to address a pivot pin outboard spacer that has been found to not be set correctly flush against the horizontal stabilizer pivot bearing and outboard washer due to a misaligned pivot pin lockring. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in decreased lateral load capacity, which could cause the loss of pivot pin retention parts and lead to loss of the horizontal stabilizer and loss of continued safe flight and landing. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), Boeing, United Airlines (United), and Etihad Airways (Etihad). ALPA supported the NPRM and had additional comments. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Clarify Inspection Area</HD> Boeing, United, and Etihad requested the proposed AD be revised to clarify an inspection area. The commenters said that flag notes [1] and [3] in Table 1 of Task 5 in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, state to do a detailed inspection of the right side horizontal stabilizer pivot pin. The commenters stated Task 5 is for the left side horizontal stabilizer pivot pin assembly and the wording “right side” in Task 5, Table 1, Flag Notes [1] and [3] is a typographical error. Etihad stated that Boeing has confirmed this and other errors in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, and stated that Boeing plans to revise the service information to address these errors. Etihad added that it would not be able to accomplish the proposed requirements without approved deviations. The FAA agrees with the request to correct the inspection area for the reasons provided. The FAA has added an exception in paragraph (h)(2) of this AD accordingly. Further, the FAA notes that the other errors mentioned by Etihad are addressed in the following comment responses. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Correct a Part Number</HD> Boeing and Etihad requested the proposed AD be revised to correct a part number. The commenters said Step 15 of Table 1 of Task 6 in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, specifies an incorrect part number for TRAP FITTING, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> listed as part number (P/N) 182W6405-1. Boeing stated that the part number for TRAP FITTING in Task 6, Table 1, Step 15 should be 313Z6455-501. The FAA agrees with the request to correct a part number for the reasons provided. The FAA has added an exception in paragraph (h)(3) of this AD accordingly. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Remove Incorrect Part Number</HD> Boeing, United, and Etihad requested the proposed AD be revised to remove reference to an incorrect part number. The commenters observed that several places in Tasks 5 through 8 in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, specify an incorrect antirotation plate part number, noting the specified part number is for the trap fitting. United added that the trap fitting part number is not mentioned in other steps and should be removed. Etihad and Boeing noted that the antirotation plate is kept and reinstalled, so specifying a part number is not necessary. The FAA agrees with the request to remove references to the incorrect antirotation part for the reasons provided. The FAA has added an exception in paragraph (h)(4) of this AD accordingly. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Correct Certain Instructions</HD> Etihad requested that instructions in Part 4 step (a) and Part 5 step (a) of Boeing Alert Service Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, be corrected to specify that the referenced AMM [Aircraft Maintenance Manual] task is for installation, not removal. The commenter noted that the AMM title is incorrectly listed as being “. . . Assembly—Removal,” when it should be “. . . Assembly—Installation.” Etihad stated that Boeing confirmed the information would be corrected in the next bulletin revision. The FAA acknowledges the typographical error in the service information. However, those instructions are not in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024. They are only included in the related service bulletin, which, as specified in Note 1 to paragraph (g) of this AD, provides guidance for accomplishing the actions in this AD. Instructions not included in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, are not required for compliance with this AD. Therefore, the FAA has determined this AD does not need to be changed regarding this issue. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Refer to Later Revision of the Service Information</HD> ALPA noted that, based on information provided by an air carrier in the docket for the proposed AD, it appears that Boeing is in the process of updating the service information referenced in the proposed AD. ALPA therefore recommended updating the proposed AD to refer to the latest version of the service information. The FAA agrees to clarify. A revised version of Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB550013-00 RB, Issue 001, dated August 30, 2024, has not been issued. However, as previously noted, this AD has been revised to address several errors that would otherwise prevent operators from complying with this AD. The FAA might consider additional rulemaking, however, if revised service information is published that requires additional actions to address the unsafe condition. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Extend Compliance Time</HD> United and Etihad requested an extension of the compliance time to 36 months. United requested the extension to match the existing Maintenance Planning Data check interval. Etihad stated it expects the AD will be due before the next C check of certain aircraft (due in quarter 1 of 2025) and therefore it might look for an option to either have dedicated inputs to comply with the AD or to advance the next C check, which is not desirable. The FAA disagrees with the request. In developing an appropriate compliance time for this action, the FAA considered the recommendations of the manufacturer, the urgency associated with the subject unsafe condition, the availability of req ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━