Airworthiness Directives; DG Aviation GmbH (Type Certificate Previously Held by DG Flugzeugbau GmbH) Gliders

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-1119; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00914-G; Amendment 39-23074; AD 2025-13-08]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; DG Aviation GmbH (Type Certificate Previously Held by DG Flugzeugbau GmbH) Gliders</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 all DG Aviation GmbH (type certificate previously held by DG Flugzeugbau GmbH) Model DG-1000T gliders. This AD was prompted by reports of propeller separation. This AD requires revising the glider flight manual and installing “Motor INOP” placards to prohibit operation with the powerplant. 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 25, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of July 25, 2025. The FAA must receive comments on this AD by August 25, 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-2025-1119; 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. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For DG Aviation GmbH material identified in this AD, contact DG Aviation GmbH, Rita Rodrigues, Otto Lilienthal Weg 2/Am Flugplatz, Bruchsal, Germany; phone: +49 (0) 7251 36660-32; email: <E T="03">rodrigues@dg-aviation.de;</E> website: <E T="03">https://www.dg-aviation.de/en/dg-flugzeugbau/contact.</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. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-1119. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dan McCully, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (404) 474-5548; email: <E T="03">william.mccully@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 using a method listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-1119; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00914-G” 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 Dan McCully, 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> The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union, has issued EASA AD 2025-0112-E, dated May 14, 2025 (referred to as “the MCAI”), to correct an unsafe condition on all DG Aviation GmbH Model DG-1000T powered sailplanes (gliders). The MCAI states two occurrences were reported of propeller separation from DG Aviation GmbH Model DG-1000T gliders. In both reports, the rubber of the damper element sheared off completely. The investigation to determine the root cause is ongoing. This condition, if not detected and corrected, could lead to separation of the propeller, which could result in reduced or loss of control of the glider or the propeller impacting the glider, passengers in the glider, or people on the ground. The MCAI prohibits use of the glider's powerplant and requires revising the glider flight manual and installing “Motor INOP” placards. The MCAI also provides removal of the powerplant as an acceptable alternative method of compliance. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-1119. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed DG aviation GmbH Service Information No. 116-25, Issue 01.b, dated May 12, 2025. This material specifies procedures for revising the DG Aviation GmbH Model DG-1000T glider flight manual, emptying the fuel tank, and installing “Motor INOP” placards. 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 civil 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, that authority 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">AD Requirements</HD> This AD requires accomplishing the actions specified in the material already described, except as discussed under “Differences Between this AD and the Referenced Material.” The owner/operator (pilot) holding at least a private pilot certificate may revise the existing glider flight manual and must enter compliance with the applicable paragraph of this AD into the glider 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 flight manual. 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">Differences Between This AD and the Referenced Material</HD> The service information specifies compliance before the next engine use, but this AD requires compliance within 3 days after the effective date of this AD. Although the service information specifies emptying the fuel tank, this AD does not require this action because this action is not required to address the unsafe condition identified in this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Interim Action</HD> The FAA considers that this AD is an interim action. If final action is later identified, the FAA might consider further 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 agencies to dispense with notice and comment procedures for rules when the agency, for “good cause,” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under this section, an agency, upon finding good cause, may issue a final rule without providing notice and seeking comment prior to issuance. Further, section 553(d) of the APA authorizes agencies to make rules effective in less than thirty days, upon the finding of good cause. An unsafe condition exists that requires the immediate adoption of this AD without providing an opportunity for public comments prior to adoption. The FAA has found that the risk to the flying public justifies forgoing notice and comment prior to adoption of this r ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━