Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters (Type Certificate Previously Held by Eurocopter France)

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2542; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-00611-R; Amendment 39-22984; AD 2025-05-12]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters (Type Certificate Previously Held by Eurocopter France)</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 superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51, which applied to certain Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters. AD 2008-10-01 required replacing certain part-numbered and serial-numbered spherical thrust bearings. AD 2010-05-51 required repetitively inspecting the main rotor (M/R) head rotor hub (rotor hub) and, depending on the results, taking corrective action. Since the FAA issued those ADs, the manufacturer revised the airworthiness limitations section (ALS) to incorporate various airworthiness limitations, tasks, and associated thresholds and intervals that were previously contained in service bulletins, as well as incorporate a new task. This AD requires revising the ALS of the existing maintenance manual (MM) or instructions for continued airworthiness (ICAs) and the existing approved maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, as specified in a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD, which is incorporated by reference. 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 8, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of May 8, 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-2024-2542; 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, the mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI), 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 EASA material identified in this AD, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; phone: +49 221 8999 000; email: <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website: <E T="03">easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find the EASA material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Office of the Regional Counsel, Southwest Region, FAA, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call (817) 222-5110. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2542. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Hye Yoon Jang, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (206) 231-3758; email: <E T="03">Hye.Yoon.Jang@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 to supersede AD 2008-10-01, Amendment 39-15507 (73 FR 24856, May 6, 2008), (AD 2008-10-01) and AD 2010-05-51, Amendment 39-16265 (75 FR 22510, April 29, 2010) (AD 2010-05-51). AD 2008-10-01 applied to Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters with spherical thrust bearings, part number (P/N) 7050A3622036 having serial number LK0130, LK0142, LK0155, or LK0158, installed. AD 2008-10-01 required removing any identified spherical thrust bearing and installing an airworthy spherical thrust bearing. AD 2008-10-01 was prompted by Direction generale de l'aviation civile France (DGAC), which was the aviation authority for France before the European Aviation Safety Agency, AD F-2006-040, dated February 15, 2006 (DGAC France AD F-2006-040), to address a batch of non-conforming spherical thrust bearings. The FAA issued AD 2008-10-01 to prevent failure of a spherical thrust bearing during flight, which, if not addressed, could cause the M/R system to separate from the helicopter, which would be catastrophic. AD 2010-05-51 applied to Eurocopter France (now Airbus Helicopters) Model EC120B helicopters with a rotor hub P/N C622A1002103, C622A1002104, or C622A1002105, installed. AD 2010-05-51 required repetitively inspecting the rotor hub, and depending on the results, sanding the area to inspect for cracks, and replacing the rotor hub if cracks are found. AD 2010-05-51 was prompted by European Aviation Safety Agency, which was the aviation authority for France after the DGAC and before the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, Emergency AD 2010-0026-E, dated February 19, 2010 (European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E), to address failure of a rotor hub attachment area in one of the three drag damper fittings. The FAA issued AD 2010-05-51 to prevent failure of a rotor hub, excessive vibrations, loss of an M/R blade, and subsequent loss of control of the helicopter. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on November 29, 2024 (89 FR 94623). The NPRM was prompted by EASA AD 2023-0083, dated April 19, 2023 (EASA AD 2023-0083) (also referred to as the MCAI), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (including France), to supersede DGAC France AD F-2006-040 and European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E. The MCAI states that airworthiness limitations instructions are identified as mandatory for continued airworthiness and that Revision 3 of AH [Airbus Helicopters] EC 120 B Chapter 4 ALS, dated July 18, 2022, was issued to introduce new, or more restrictive tasks, or both, including incorporation of the requirements of DGAC France AD F-2006-040 and European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency AD 2010-0026-E. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require revising the ALS of the existing MM or ICAs and the existing approved maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, by incorporating new or more restrictive actions and associated thresholds and intervals, including any life limits, specified in EASA AD 2023-0083, as incorporated by reference, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this AD and except as discussed under “Differences Between this AD and the EASA AD.” You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2542. Lastly, since the FAA issued AD 2008-10-01 and AD 2010-05-51, Eurocopter France changed its name to Airbus Helicopters; this AD reflects that change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received no comments on the NPRM or on the determination of the costs. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> These products have been approved by the aviation authority of another country and are approved for operation in the United States. Pursuant to the FAA's bilateral agreement with this State of Design Authority, it has notified the FAA of the unsafe condition described in the MCAI referenced above. The FAA reviewed the relevant data and determined that air safety requires adopting this AD as proposed. Accordingly, the FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. Except for minor editorial changes, this AD is adopted as proposed in the NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2023-0083, which requires replacing components before exceeding their life limits and accomplishing all applicable maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals specified in the ALS as defined within. Depending on the results of the maintenance tasks, EASA AD 2023-0083 requires accomplishing corrective action(s) or contacting AH [Airbus Helicopters] for approved instructions and accomplishing those instructions. Additionally, EASA AD 2023-0083 requires revising the Aircraft Maintenance Programme (AMP) by incorporating the limitations, tasks, and associated thresholds and intervals described in the specified ALS, as applicable. Revising the AMP constitutes terminating action for the requirement to record accomplishment of the actions of replacing components before exceeding their life limits and accomplishing maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals specified in the applicable ALS as required by EASA AD 2023-0083 for demonstration of AD compliance on a continued basis. This material is reasonably available because the interested parties have access to it through their normal course of business or by the means identified in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This AD and the EASA AD</HD> EASA AD 2023-0083 requires, as individual tasks, replacing certain components before exceeding applicable life limits, accomplishing certain maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals as specified in the ALS, as defined within, and depending on the results, accomplishing corrective action(s), whereas this AD does not. EASA AD 2023-0083 also requires revising the approved AMP to incorporate the limitations, tasks, and associated thresholds and intervals described in that ALS within 12 months, whereas this AD requires revising the ALS of the existing MM or ICAs and the existing approved maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, by incorporating the ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━