Airworthiness Directives; BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (Formerly BRP-POWERTRAIN GMBH & CO KG and Bombardier-Rotax GmbH) Engines

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0346; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00052-E; Amendment 39-23003; AD 2025-07-02]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (Formerly BRP-POWERTRAIN GMBH & CO KG and Bombardier-Rotax GmbH) Engines</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (Rotax) Model 912 iSc2 Sport, 912 iSc3 Sport, 915 iSc2 C24, and 915 iSc3 C24 engines. This AD was prompted by a report of deviations during the manufacturing process that caused incorrect application of a certain thread-locker to certain sprag clutch housing and oil spray nozzles. This AD requires repetitive operational checks of the battery backup function with removal of the engine from service if insufficient battery power is found, one-time inspections of the oil spray nozzle and generator stator assembly, and, depending on the results of the inspections, replacement with parts eligible for installation. 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 April 21, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of April 21, 2025. The FAA must receive comments on this AD by May 19, 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-2025-0346; 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 street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For Rotax material identified in this AD, contact Rotax, Rotaxstrasse 1, A-4623 Gunskirchen, Austria; phone: +43 7246 601 0; website: <E T="03">flyrotax.com.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Airworthiness Products Section, Operational Safety Branch, 1200 District Avenue, Burlington, MA 01803. 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-2025-0346. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kenneth Steeves, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (781) 238-7765; email: <E T="03">kenneth.steeves@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 data, views, or arguments about this final rule. Send your comments to an address listed under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-0346; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00052-E” at the beginning of your comments. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the final rule, 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 final rule 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 final rule. <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 AD 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 AD, 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 AD. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Kenneth Steeves, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. 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 European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union, has issued EASA Emergency AD 2025-0019-E, dated January 16, 2025 (referred to after this as the MCAI), to address an unsafe condition on Rotax 912 iSc Sport, 915 iSc A, 915 iSc C24, 916 iSc A, 916 iSc B, and 916 iSc C24 series engines, all models, all serial numbers. The MCAI states that the manufacturer reported an occurrence from the production line of an excessive amount of thread-locker applied at the sprag clutch housing and oil spray nozzle of several engines. Further investigation by the manufacturer revealed that this abnormality was caused by a deviation in the manufacturing process. Improper application of thread-locker can cause blockage of the oil nozzle, potentially leading to inadequate cooling and damage to the generators. This condition, if not corrected, could lead to engine in-flight shutdown and forced landing, damage to the airplane, and injury to the occupants. The FAA is also permitting the owner/operator (pilot) holding at least a private pilot certificate to perform an operational check to ensure the availability of the battery backup function in accordance with paragraph (g)(1) of this AD. The FAA is also requiring that compliance with the applicable paragraphs of this AD be entered into the engine maintenance records in accordance with 14 CFR 43.9(a) and 91.417(a)(2)(v). This action could be performed equally well by a pilot or a mechanic. This is an exception to the FAA's standard maintenance regulations. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0346. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed Rotax Alert Service Bulletin ASB-912 i-016 R1/ASB-915 i-016 R1/ASB-916 i-006 R1, Revision 1, dated December 20, 2024 (published as a single document). This material specifies procedures for performing an operational check of the battery backup function, inspecting the oil spray nozzle and generator stator assembly, and replacing the oil spray nozzle. 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">FAA's Determination</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 is issuing this AD after determining that the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop on other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">AD Requirements</HD> This AD requires repetitive operational checks of the battery backup function with removal of the engine from service if insufficient battery power is found, one-time inspections of the oil spray nozzle and generator stator assembly, and, depending on the results of the inspections, replacement with parts eligible for installation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This AD and the MCAI</HD> Where the MCAI applies to Rotax Model 915 iSc A, 916 iSc A, 916 iSc B and 916 iSc C24 series engines, all models, all serial numbers, this AD does not, as these engine models do not have an FAA type certificate. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Justification for Immediate Adoption and Determination of the Effective Date</HD> Section 553(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) authorizes agencies to dispense with notice and comment procedures for rules when the agency, for “good cause,” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under this section, an agency, upon finding good cause, may issue a final rule without providing notice and seeking comment prior to issuance. Further, section 553(d) of the APA authorizes agencies to make rules effective in less than thirty days, upon a finding of good cause. An unsafe condition exists that requires the immediate adoption of thi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━