Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0745; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00187-T; Amendment 39-23028; AD 2025-09-07]</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; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Airbus SAS Model A330-243, -243F, -841, and -941 airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of loss of data synchronization between radio management panels (RMPs) and the audio management unit (AMU). This AD requires revising the existing airplane flight manual (AFM) by providing instructions to address dual loss of RMP data synchronization, and the existing minimum equipment list (MEL) by removing relief for an inoperative RMP 3. 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 15, 2025. The FAA must receive comments on this AD by June 16, 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-2025-0745; 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> James Clary, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5138; email: <E T="03">James.Clary@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 the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-0745; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00187-T” 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 James Clary, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5138; email: <E T="03">James.Clary@faa.gov.</E> 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 AD 2025-0043, dated February 19, 2025 (EASA AD 2025-0043) (also referred to as “the MCAI”), to correct an unsafe condition for Airbus SAS Model A330-243, -243F, -841, and -941 airplanes with the digital RMP function installed by modification 207423. The MCAI states loss of data synchronization between the RMPs and the AMU were reported. Such loss of data synchronization can lead to the loss of radio communication, uncommanded changes of transponder and traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) settings, and activation of standby navigation mode on all RMPs. This condition, if not corrected, could result in total loss of radio communication if RMP 3 is inoperative prior to dispatch, including loss of transponder functionality and standby navigation. Accordingly, EASA AD 2025-0043 describes procedures for revising the existing AFM by providing instructions to address dual loss of RMP data synchronization. EASA AD 2025-0043 also specifies procedures for revising the master minimum equipment list (MMEL) by adding relief to allow airplane dispatch with an inoperative RMP 1 or RMP 2 (instead of only RMP 2) and removing the relief that allows airplane dispatch with an inoperative RMP 3. 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-2025-0745. <HD SOURCE="HD1">FAA's Determination</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 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">Requirements of This AD</HD> This AD requires accomplishing the actions specified in EASA AD 2025-0043 described previously, except as discussed under “Differences Between This AD and the MCAI.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Compliance With AFM and MEL Revisions</HD> EASA AD 2025-0043 requires operators to “inform all flight crews” of revisions to the AFM and MEL, and thereafter to “operate the aeroplane accordingly.” However, this AD does not specifically require those actions as those actions are already required by FAA regulations. FAA regulations require that operators furnish to pilots any changes to the AFM (for example, 14 CFR 121.137) and that pilots are familiar with the AFM (for example, 14 CFR 91.505). As with any other flightcrew training requirement, training on the updated AFM content is tracked by the operators and recorded in each pilot's training record, which is available for the FAA to review. FAA regulations also require pilots to follow the procedures in the AFM including all updates. Section 91.9 requires that any person operating a civil aircraft must comply with the operating limitations specified in the AFM. FAA regulations (14 CFR 121.628(a)(2)) require operators to provide pilots with access to all of the information contained in the operator's MEL. Further, § 121.628(a)(5) requires airplanes to be operated under all applicable conditions and limitations contained in the operator's MEL. Therefore, including a requirement in this AD to operate the airplane according to the revised AFM or MEL would be redundant and unnecessary. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This AD and the MCAI</HD> The Airbus MMEL update referenced in EASA AD 2025-0043 allows airplane dispatch with an inoperative RMP 1 or RMP 2. This AD, however, does not allow dispatch with an inoperative RMP 1. According to FAA MMEL Policy Letter 63, revision 4, dated July 5, 2012, the MMEL/MEL may not provide relief for instruments and equipment that are necessary for accomplishing an emergency procedure. However, relief may be considered for redundant instruments or equipment powered by the same power source used for accomplishing the emergency procedure. The digital RMP function consists of three RMPs, but only RMP 1 functions in an emergency electrical configuration ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> RMP 2 and RMP 3 are not available if the flightcrew needs to switch to emergency power). Therefore, the FAA has determined that an airplane cannot be dispatched with an inoperative RMP 1 because it is essential for safe operation under emergency conditions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Interim Action</HD> The FAA considers that this AD is an interim action. The design approval holder is currently developing a modification that will address the unsafe condition identified in this AD. Once this modification is developed, approved, and available, the FAA might consider additional rulemaking. <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 ag ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━