Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0754; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00489-T]</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> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA proposes to supersede Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2017-23-04, which applies to all Airbus SAS Model A300 B4-600R series airplanes; all Model A300 B4-603, B4-620, and B4-622 airplanes; all Model A300 C4-605R Variant F airplanes; and certain Model A300 F4-605R airplanes. AD 2017-23-04 requires an inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints, and modification of the stringer joint couplings if necessary. Since the FAA issued AD 2017-23-04, it has been determined that additional airplanes may be subject to the identified unsafe condition. This proposed AD would continue to require the actions in AD 2017-23-04 and would add airplanes, as specified in a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD, which is proposed for incorporation by reference (IBR). This proposed AD would also remove certain airplanes from the applicability. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this proposed AD by June 27, 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-2025-0754; 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 NPRM, 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 EASA material identified in this proposed AD, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; telephone +49 221 8999 000; email <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu</E> . You may find this material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu</E> . It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0754. • 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Aaron Nguyen, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5134; email: <E T="03">Aaron.T.Nguyen@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 relevant data, views, or arguments about this proposal. Send your comments to an address listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-0754; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00489-T” at the beginning of your comments. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, 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 proposal 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 NPRM. <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 NPRM 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 NPRM, 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 NPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Aaron Nguyen, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5134; email: <E T="03">Aaron.T.Nguyen@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 FAA issued AD 2017-23-04, Amendment 39-19098 (82 FR 52832, November 15, 2017) (AD 2017-23-04), for all Airbus SAS Model A300 B4-600R series airplanes; all Model A300 B4-603, B4-620, and B4-622 airplanes; all Model A300 C4-605R Variant F airplanes; and certain Model A300 F4-605R airplanes. AD 2017-23-04 was prompted by an MCAI originated by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA issued AD 2017-0023, dated February 10, 2017 (EASA AD 2017-0023), to correct an unsafe condition. AD 2017-23-04 requires an inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints, and modification of the stringer joint couplings if necessary. The FAA issued AD 2017-23-04 to detect and correct damage (including cracking) at the stringer joints, which could reduce the structural integrity of the wing. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2017-23-04 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2017-23-04, EASA superseded AD 2017-0023 and issued EASA AD 2024-0170, dated August 26, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0170) (also referred to as the MCAI), to correct an unsafe condition for all Airbus SAS Model A300 B4-603, B4-605R, B4-622, B4-622R, C4-605R Variant F, C4-620, F4-605R, and F4-622R airplanes. Model A300 C4-620 airplanes are not certificated by the FAA and are not included on the U.S. type certificate data sheet; this proposed AD therefore does not include those airplanes in the applicability. The MCAI also removes Model A300 B4-620 airplanes from the applicability as none are operational. The MCAI states that EASA AD 2024-0170 was issued to expand the applicability to include Model A300 F4-605R airplanes in post-modification 12699 configuration ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> airplanes embodied with Airbus modification 12699) and A300 F4-622R airplanes, even though the introduced models are below the lower threshold of the embodiment window (for modification of the stringer joint couplings), ensuring that their structures remain resistant against widespread fatigue damage within their established limit of validity. The FAA is proposing this AD to detect and correct damage (including cracking) at the stringer joints, which could reduce the structural integrity of the wing. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0754. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Explanation of Retained Requirements</HD> Although this proposed AD does not explicitly restate the requirements of AD 2017-23-04, this proposed AD would retain all of the requirements of AD 2017-23-04. Those requirements are referenced in EASA AD 2024-0170, which, in turn, is referenced in paragraph (g) of this proposed AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> EASA AD 2024-0170 specifies procedures for a detailed visual inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints at rib 18 for damage (including cracking), modification of the stringer joint couplings at rib 18, and corrective actions if necessary. The modification includes oversizing fastener holes in the upper wing skin and doing a special detailed (roto-probe) inspection for damage, including cracking, of the fastener holes. Corrective actions include obtaining and following repair instructions. 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> 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 NPRM after determining that the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed AD Requirements in This NPRM</HD> This proposed AD would retain all requirements of AD 2017-23-04. This proposed AD would revise the applicability by removing Model A300 B4-620 airplanes, adding Model A300 F4-622R airplanes, and expanding the appl ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━