Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2320; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00268-T; Amendment 39-23006; AD 2025-07-05]</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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Airbus SAS Model A350-941 and -1041 airplanes. This AD was prompted by an updated stress analysis on the forward (FWD) cargo door and its attachment piano hinges that revealed a risk of cracking and crack propagation on piano hinges 2 and 3, originating from opening-closing fatigue cycles of the FWD cargo door. This AD requires an inspection of the affected parts, and applicable corrective actions, 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 13, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of May 13, 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-2024-2320; 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; 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. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2320. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nathan Weigand, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3531; email: <E T="03">nathan.p.weigand@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 Airbus SAS Model A350-941 and -1041 airplanes. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on September 30, 2024 (89 FR 79477). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0129, dated July 5, 2024, issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (EASA AD 2024-0129) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states an update of the stress analysis resulted in a new definition of interface load distribution between the FWD cargo door and the associated fuselage piano hinges. Further investigation revealed a risk of cracking and crack propagation on the affected parts, originating from opening-closing fatigue cycles of the FWD cargo door. Under this condition, door operation could cause damage to the FWD cargo door surrounding structure and consequent reduced structural integrity of the airplane. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require an inspection of the affected parts, and applicable corrective actions, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0129. The FAA is issuing 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-2024-2320. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received a comment from the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received an additional comment from Delta Air Lines, Inc. (Delta). The following presents the comment received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to the comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Use an Alternative Safety Harness Manufacturer Part Number</HD> Delta requested permission to use an alternative approved safety harness manufacturer part number (MPN) to accomplish step 5.3.B.(2) of Airbus Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) A53P17-24 Revision 01, dated June 26, 2024. Delta stated the AOT specifically requires safety harness MPN 98L12003001000 for compliance. Delta stated that based on previously approved alternative methods of compliance (AMOCs), alternative approved safety harness MPNs provide an acceptable level of safety during compliance with the requirements. Delta suggested revising paragraph (h) of the proposed AD to add the statement, “equivalent harness MPN(s) are acceptable.” The FAA agrees to clarify. As specified in paragraph (i)(3) of this AD, if any material referenced in EASA AD 2024-0129 contains paragraphs that are identified as required for compliance (RC), those paragraphs must be done to comply with this AD; any paragraphs that are not identified as RC are recommended. The instructions in paragraph 5.3, including step 5.3.B.(2), in the Airbus AOT referenced in EASA AD 2024-0129 are not labeled as RC. Therefore, using the safety harness part number specified in the Airbus AOT is not required for compliance with this AD, and operators may use a safety harness with a different part number provided the instructions identified as RC can be done and the airplane can be put back in an airworthy condition. The FAA has not revised this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> This product has been approved by the aviation authority of another country and is 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, considered the comments received, and determined that air safety requires adopting this AD as proposed. Accordingly, the FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on this product. Except for minor editorial changes, this AD is adopted as proposed in the NPRM. None of the changes will increase the economic burden on any operator. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> EASA AD 2024-0129 specifies procedures for performing a detailed inspection for cracks and damage (including dents, discoloration, punctures, nicks, and scratches) of the FWD cargo door piano hinges 2 and 3, and obtaining and following instructions for repair of cracks and damage. EASA AD 2024-0129 also specifies procedures for checking the condition and integrity of the temporary protection system (TPS) layer, if installed, removing any damaged TPS layer, and applying a new layer if the TPS layer was damaged, removed, or cleaned. 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">Costs of Compliance</HD> The FAA estimates that this AD affects 28 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,12,12,12"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> Cost on U.S. operators </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Inspection (cargo door piano hinges) and TPS layer check</ENT> <ENT>1 work-hour × $85 per hour = $85</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$85</ENT> <ENT>$2,380</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for the on-condition actions specified in this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> Title 49 of the United States Code specifies the FAA's authority to issue rules on aviation safety. Subtitle I, section 106, describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII: Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the Agency's authority. The FAA is issuing this rulemaking under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart III, Section 44701: General requirements. Under that section, Congress charges the FAA with promoting safe flight of civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing regulations for practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce. This regulation is within the scope of that authority because it addresses an unsafe condition that is likely to exist or develop on products identified in this rulemaking action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Findings</HD> This AD will not have federalism implications under Executive Order 13132. This AD will not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. For the reasons discussed above, I certify that this AD: (1) Is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, (2) Will not affect intrastate aviation in Alaska, and (3) Will not h ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━