Airworthiness Directives; Pilatus Aircraft Ltd. Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0917; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00740-A]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Pilatus Aircraft Ltd. 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 adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Pilatus Aircraft Ltd. (Pilatus) Model PC-24 airplanes. This proposed AD was prompted by a report of an inaccurate flight director calculation on approach. This proposed AD would require incorporating a temporary revision into the existing airplane flight manual (AFM) for the affected airplanes, which revises the Abnormal Procedures Section. 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 NPRM by August 4, 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-2025-0917; 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. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Material Incorporated by Reference</HD> • For European Union Aviation Agency (EASA) material identified in this NPRM, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; phone: +49 221 8999 000; email: <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website: <E T="03">easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find this material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Airworthiness Products Section, Operational Safety Branch, 901 Locust, Kansas City, MO 64106. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call (817) 222-5110. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Doug Rudolph, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (816) 329-4059; email: <E T="03">doug.rudolph@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 <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-0917; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00740-A” 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 Doug Rudolph, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. 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> EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union, has issued EASA AD 2024-0240, dated December 10, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0240) (also referred to as the MCAI), to correct an unsafe condition on Pilatus Model PC-24 airplanes, all manufacturer serial numbers. The MCAI states there was a report of inaccurate flight director calculation on approach with APEX Build 5.3 and below software installed. Further investigation revealed that heading splits can cause errors in the flight director calculation resulting in lateral offsets to the desired approach course. The MCAI also states that the AD is considered an interim action and further AD action may follow. This condition, if not addressed, could result in increased pilot workload, resulting in a reduction of the safety margins. The FAA is proposing 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-2025-0917. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2024-0240, which specifies procedures for incorporating Pilatus PC-24 AFM Temporary Revision 02371-075 (also referred to as AFM-TR) into the AFM, which revises the Abnormal Procedures Section. EASA AD 2024-0240 also specifies informing all flight crews of the change, and, thereafter, operating the airplane accordingly, and allows for the incorporation of a later AFM revision that includes the same AFM amendment content. 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> These products have been approved by the aviation authority of another country and are 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 on other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed AD Requirements in This NPRM</HD> This proposed AD would require accomplishing the actions specified in the MCAI described previously, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this proposed AD. See “Differences Between this AD and the MCAI” for a discussion of the general differences included in this AD. The owner/operator (pilot) holding at least a private pilot certificate may revise the existing AFM for your airplane and must enter compliance with the applicable paragraph of this proposed AD into the airplane maintenance records in accordance with 14 CFR 43.9(a) and 91.417(a)(2)(v). The pilot may perform this action because it only involves revising the AFM. This action could be performed equally well by a pilot or a mechanic. This is an exception to the FAA's standard maintenance regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Explanation of Required Compliance Information</HD> In the FAA's ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of the AD process, the FAA developed a process to use some civil aviation authority (CAA) ADs as the primary source of information for compliance with requirements for corresponding FAA ADs. The FAA has since coordinated with other manufacturers and CAAs to use this process. As a result, the FAA proposes to incorporate by reference EASA AD 2024-0240 in the FAA final rule. This proposed AD would, therefore, require compliance with EASA AD 2024-0240 in its entirety through that incorporation, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this proposed AD. Using common terms that are the same as the heading of a particular section in the EASA AD does not mean that operators need comply only with that section. For example, where the AD requirement refers to “all required actions and compliance times,” compliance with this AD requirement is not limited to the section titled “Required Action(s) and Compliance Time(s)” in EASA AD 2024-0240. Service information required by the EASA AD for compliance will be available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0917 after the FAA final rule is published. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This NPRM and the MCAI</HD> EASA AD 2024-0240 includes requirements to “inform all flight crews and, thereafter, operate the [airplane] accordingly”, and this proposed AD would not specifically require those actions because those actions are already required by FAA regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Interim Action</HD> The FAA considers th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. 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