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-2025-0005; Project Identifier AD-2024-00646-T; Amendment 39-23051; AD 2025-11-05]</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 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of multiple supplier notices of escapement (NOEs) indicating that seat track splice fittings were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. This AD requires an inspection of seat track splice fittings to determine the material 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 a certain publication 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-2025-0005; 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> . • 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-2025-0005. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joseph Hodgin, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3962; email: <E T="03">Joseph.J.Hodgin@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 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 17, 2025 (90 FR 5756). The NPRM was prompted by reports of multiple supplier NOEs indicating that seat track splice fittings were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require an inspection of seat track splice fittings to determine the material and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA is issuing this AD to address seat track splice fittings manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in failure of the seat track splice fittings, and could result in serious injury to seated occupants as a result of adverse effects on emergency egress and structural capability to react to emergency landing loads. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from four anonymous commenters who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from three commenters, including Boeing, Air New Zealand, and the Foundation for Aviation Safety. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Clarification of Root Cause</HD> The Foundation for Aviation Safety requested an explanation of the root cause of the use of the incorrect titanium alloy material, asked how its use was discovered and why the original process wasn't effective in identifying use of the incorrect material, and clarification on the preventive measures to keep this from happening again. The FAA provides the following clarification. Boeing and the FAA have received reports of multiple supplier NOEs indicating that seat track splice fittings were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. The FAA has determined the actions specified in this AD must be done to address the unsafe condition. The root cause of the use of the incorrect titanium alloy material is still under investigation. The FAA is working with Boeing to address the root cause. No change to this AD is necessary as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Add Exception</HD> Boeing and Air New Zealand requested an exception be added to the proposed AD to allow use of collars having part number (P/N) BACC30BS10K for tasks 17 and 18 of Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB530086-00 RB, Issue 001, dated October 18, 2024. Air New Zealand stated tasks 17 and 18 of Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB530086-00 RB, Issue 001, dated October 18, 2024, and Boeing Alert Service Bulletin B787-81205-SB530086-00, Issue 001, dated October 18, 2024, use collars having P/N BACC30BS10S. Air New Zealand further pointed out that table 18 of paragraph 3.A., Kits/Parts, of Boeing Alert Service Bulletin B787-81205-SB530086-00, Issue 001, dated October 18, 2024, lists collars having P/N BACC30BS10K for tasks 17 and 18. Boeing confirmed that both collars are structurally and functionally equivalent at these locations. The FAA agrees with this request for the reasons provided. Paragraph (h) of the proposed AD has been reidentified as paragraph (h)(1) in this AD and paragraph (h)(2) has been added to this AD to provide the exception to allow P/N BACC30BS10K. <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 B787-81205-SB530086-00 RB, Issue 001, dated October 18, 2024. This material specifies procedures for an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer inspection or a high frequency eddy current inspection of seat track splice fittings to determine the material and applicable on-condition actions. On-condition actions include replacing affected seat track splice fittings with new seat track splice fittings at affected locations. 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 37 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,12,12,12"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Cost per product </CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost on U.S. operators</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Inspection</ENT> <ENT>16 work-hours × $85 per hour = $1,360</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$1,360</ENT> <ENT>$50,320</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA estimates the following costs to do any necessary replacements that would be required based on the results of the required inspection. The agency has no way of determining the number of aircraft that might need this replacement: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50,r50"> <TTITLE>On-Condition Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost per product</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Replacement</ENT> <ENT>Up to 20 work-hours × $85 per hour = $1,700</ENT> <ENT>Up to $4,140</ENT> <ENT>Up to $5,840 (per location, up to 20 locations per airplane).</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has included all known costs in its cost estimate. According to the manufacturer, however, some or all of the costs of this AD may be covered under warranty, thereby reducing the cost impact on affected operators. <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 ha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━