Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-1703; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-01054-T; Amendment 39-23005; AD 2025-07-04]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) 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 all Airbus Canada Limited Partnership Model BD-500-1A11 airplanes. This AD was prompted by a design review of aircraft structural and stress reports that resulted in a revision of operational loads for some aircraft flight phases. This AD requires a review and disposition of all existing repairs and damage assessments for affected structure, corrective actions if necessary, and the prohibition of certain repair engineering orders (REOs), as specified in a Transport Canada 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 27, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of May 27, 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-2024-1703; 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 Transport Canada material identified in this AD, contact Transport Canada, Transport Canada National Aircraft Certification, 159 Cleopatra Drive, Nepean, Ontario K1A 0N5, Canada; telephone 888-663-3639; email <E T="03">TC.AirworthinessDirectives-Consignesdenavigabilite.TC@tc.gc.ca;</E> website at <E T="03">tc.canada.ca/en/aviation.</E> • For Airbus Canada material identified in this AD, contact Airbus Canada Limited Partnership, 13100 Henri-Fabre Boulevard, Mirabel, Québec J7N 3C6, Canada; telephone 450-476-7676; email <E T="03">a220_crc@abc.airbus;</E> website <E T="03">a220world.airbus.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-2024-1703. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Deep Gaurav, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-228-3731; email: <E T="03">Deep.Gaurav@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 all Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (ACLP) Model BD-500-1A11 airplanes. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 3, 2024 (89 FR 55126). The NPRM was prompted by AD CF-2023-70, dated October 5, 2023 (Transport Canada AD CF-2023-70) (also referred to as the MCAI), issued by Transport Canada, which is the aviation authority for Canada. The MCAI states a design review of aircraft structural and stress reports for Model BD-500-1A10 and Model BD-500-1A11 airplanes has resulted in a revision of operational loads for some aircraft flight phases, affecting certain aircraft sections. As a result, repairs and damage assessments accomplished on aircraft to date may have exceeded the available structural margins and require review to ensure they comply with the revised stress data for the affected sections. The MCAI also states that Transport Canada AD CF-2023-37, dated May 30, 2023, mandates that ASRP 136.01 or later approved versions, or ACLP source data approved at the time of the disposition, be used for any new structural assessments, repairs, and dispositions for all Model BD-500-1A10 and Model BD-500-1A11 airplanes. The MCAI mandates the review and disposition of all repairs and damage assessments for affected structure and prohibits the use of previously authorized repairs as source data to generate new repairs for affected structure for Model BD-500-1A11 airplanes. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require using a certain version of the ASRP and a review and disposition of repairs based on previous versions, as specified in Transport Canada AD CF-2023-70. However, as stated in Transport Canada AD CF-2023-70, the requirement to use a certain version of the ASRP ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> ASRP 136.01 or later) was mandated by Transport Canada AD CF-2023-37. The FAA adopted that requirement in AD 2025-05-07, Amendment 39-22979 (90 FR 11662, March 11, 2025). Therefore, the FAA has revised the preamble of this AD to remove reference to that requirement and clarify the actions required by this AD. The FAA is issuing this AD to address in-service repairs in some structural areas that require verification and possibly further repair. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in negative margins for the load envelopes. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-1703. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from Delta Air Lines, Inc. (Delta). The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Correct Reference to Airbus Canada Source Data</HD> Delta requested the FAA revise the exception in paragraph (h)(2) of the proposed AD to replace the reference to “Airbus Canada source data” with “ACLP disposition.” As justification, Delta stated Transport Canada AD CF-2023-70 does not use the term Airbus Canada source data, nor is it defined in that AD. The FAA partially agrees. The FAA agrees the term “Airbus Canada source data” is not used or defined in the MCAI. However, the FAA has removed paragraph (h)(2) of the proposed AD from this AD instead of revising the exception. Upon review, the FAA has determined an exception is not needed for Part I, paragraph B., of the MCAI because any requirement to contact ACLP for disposition is addressed under the provisions of paragraph (i)(2) of this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Revise Service Bulletin Reference</HD> Delta requested the FAA revise paragraph (h)(3) of the proposed AD to require using Airbus Canada Limited Partnership Service Bulletin BD500-530012, Issue 002, dated March 6, 2024, instead of Issue 001, dated September 13, 2023, for the defining the “Affected Structure.” Delta stated that using the later service bulletin will ensure that improvements incorporated into the work instructions are carried into the final rule. The FAA partially agrees. The FAA agrees Issue 002 of the service bulletin is acceptable for defining the “Affected Structure,” but Issue 001 may also be used. Therefore, the FAA has revised this AD to allow use of either of these service bulletins. Note that paragraph (h)(3) of the proposed AD has been redesignated as paragraph (h)(2) in this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Allow Use of Certain Generic Repair Engineering Orders (GREOs)</HD> Delta requested the FAA add a new paragraph (h)(5) to the proposed AD to clarify which REOs are acceptable and do not require further review. Delta noted that Airbus Canada Service Bulletin BD500-530012, Issue 002, dated March 6, 2024, specifies that Airbus Canada specific REOs with an issue date later than December 31, 2022, have already been validated and do not require additional approved disposition. Delta requested this statement be amended to also specify that GREOs with an issued date later than September 22, 2022, have already been validated and do not require an additional approved disposition. Delta stated that Airbus Canada confirmed via correspondence that such GREOs have been validated and do not require an additional review and approved disposition. The FAA partially agrees. The FAA disagrees that all GREOs issued later than September 22, 2022, are acceptable for compliance with the requirements of this AD but agrees certain GREOs may be acceptable for compliance. GREOs apply to a particular operator's fleet, so it would be inappropriate to allow use of all GREOs as of a certain date for all airplanes. However, Transport Canada has provided to the FAA a list of GREOs that are limited to those that address the “Affected Structure” defined in the referenced service information, which may be used to generate a repair disposition for all airplanes. Therefore, the FAA has added a new exception to paragraph (h)(3) of this AD providing the list of acceptable GREOs that may be used to comply with the intent of this AD. The FAA may consider allowing use of other GREOs not listed in the exception as an acceptable method of compliance according to the provisions of paragraph (i)(2) of this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Correct an Email Address for the Airplane Manufacturer</HD> Delta requested the FAA add new paragraph (h)(4) to the proposed AD to clarify the method for contacting Airbus Canada. Delta stated A ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 25k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━