Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0012; Project Identifier AD-2024-00219-T; Amendment 39-23047; AD 2025-11-01]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company 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 The Boeing Company Model 757-200, -200CB, and -300 series airplanes. This AD was prompted by a report of cracking found in new locations at a certain body station (STA) during frame segment replacement repairs, including in the web at the K-hole between certain stringers, in the outer chord above the lower hinge intercostal, and in the inner chord and web between certain stringers. This AD requires an inspection or records check for the presence of approved or local repairs, repetitive eddy current inspections for cracking, and applicable on-condition actions. 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 July 8, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of July 8, 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-2025-0012; 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, 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 Boeing material identified in this AD, contact Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Contractual & Data Services (C&DS), 2600 Westminster Blvd., MC 110 SK57, Seal Beach, CA 90740-5600; telephone 562-797-1717; website <E T="03">myboeingfleet.com</E> . • For the Aviation Partners Boeing material identified in this AD, contact Aviation Partners Boeing, 555 Andover Park West, Suite 200, Tukwila, WA 98188; telephone 206-830-7699; fax 206-767-0535; email <E T="03">leng@aviationpartners.com;</E> website <E T="03">aviationpartnersboeing.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-2025-0012. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Wayne Ha, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 562-627-5238; email: <E T="03">wayne.ha@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 The Boeing Company Model 757-200, -200CB, and -300 series airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 31, 2025 (90 FR 8690). The NPRM was prompted by a report of cracking found in new locations at STA 1640 during frame segment replacement repairs, including in the web at the K-hole between stringers S-9 and S-10, in the outer chord above the lower hinge intercostal, and in the inner chord and web between stringers S-10 and S-19. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require an inspection or records check for the presence of approved or local repairs, repetitive eddy current inspections for cracking, and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA is issuing this AD to address undetected cracks in the fuselage frame at STA 1640, which could affect a principal structural element's ability to sustain limit load. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in reduced structural integrity of the airplane. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from United Airlines and four individuals who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from Aviation Partners Boeing (APB), FedEx, and an anonymous commenter. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Revise Address for APB</HD> APB requested a revision to the mailing address identified in paragraph (k)(4) of the proposed AD. APB noted that the address identified in that paragraph is not current and provided an address that is current with the reissuance of supplemental type certificate (STC) ST01518SE, dated April 20, 2024. The FAA agrees to revise the address and has revised the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section and paragraph (k)(4) of this AD with the current address. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Add an Exception To Address Frame Segment Replacement Repairs</HD> FedEx requested an exception be added to paragraph (h) of the proposed AD to address frame segment replacement repairs that meet certain criteria and are FAA-approved in accordance with FAA Form 8100-9 or 8110-3. FedEx reasoned that if existing frame segment replacement repairs are approved as alternative methods of compliance (AMOCs) to other ADs, then those AMOCs should be extended to this proposed AD. FedEx stated that if the FAA does not include the suggested exception, then operators would need to apply for AMOCs for existing frame segment replacement repairs. The FAA disagrees with the request to add this exception to paragraph (h) of this AD. The frame segment replacement repairs specified by FedEx are not identified in the Boeing Alerts Requirements Bulletin 757-53A0123 RB, dated March 13, 2024, and would need to be reviewed through the AMOC process specified in paragraph (i) of this AD. Although existing frame segment replacement repairs might be approved as AMOCs to other ADs, the repairs have not been reviewed to determine if they also address the unsafe condition identified in this AD. No change has been made to this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Explain Scope of Proposed AD</HD> An individual commenter asked why the proposed AD was not already in effect and stated that the proposed rule should apply to every airline company. The FAA agrees to clarify. In accordance with 14 CFR 39.5, the FAA issues an AD when an unsafe condition exists or is likely to develop in other products of the same type design. An AD will apply to products (aircraft, aircraft engines, propellers, and appliances) that either has or is likely to develop the unsafe condition. 14 CFR 39.7 specifies that once an AD is issued, no person may operate a product to which the AD applies except in accordance with the requirements of that AD. This AD was not previously issued because this safety issue was only recently found in service. Once the safety issue was reported, the FAA initiated the rulemaking process after performing an analysis of the findings and determining that an unsafe condition exists. The analysis led to the determination that this AD is applicable only to Model 757-200, -200CB, and -300 series airplanes. Thus, only operators of these affected models are required to comply with this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> The FAA reviewed the relevant data, considered any 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 these products. Except for minor editorial changes, and any other changes described previously, 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> The FAA reviewed Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 757-53A0123 RB, dated March 13, 2024. This material specifies procedures for an inspection or records check for the presence of approved repairs at STA 1640 frame between stringers S-9 and S-19, left and right sides, or local repairs at specified locations at STA 1640; repetitive eddy current inspections for cracking of the STA 1640 frame inner chord, web and outer chord at specified locations; and applicable on-condition actions. On-condition actions include contacting Boeing for repair. The FAA also reviewed Aviation Partners Boeing Alert Service Bulletin AP757-53-006, dated May 7, 2024. This material specifies procedures for an inspection or records check for the presence of approved repairs at STA 1640 frame between stringers S-9 and S-19, left and right sides, or local repairs at specified locations at STA 1640, repetitive eddy current inspections for cracking of the STA 1640 frame inner chord, web and outer chord at specified locations, and applicable on-condition actions. On-condition actions include contacting Boeing for repair. These documents are distinct since they apply to different airplane configurations. 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 481 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50,r50,r50"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">L ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━