Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-0765; Project Identifier MCAI-2022-00981-R; Amendment 39-23106; AD 2025-16-08]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters</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 all Airbus Helicopters Model EC 130 B4 and EC 130 T2 helicopters. This AD was prompted by the determination that fatigue cracks may develop at the root section of certain tail rotor blades (TRBs). This AD requires inspecting those TRBs and, depending on the results, replacing the TRB with a serviceable TRB. This AD also prohibits installing those TRBs unless certain actions are accomplished. 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 September 22, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of September 22, 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-2024-0765; 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 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 European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) material identified in this AD, 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 the EASA material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Office of the Regional Counsel, Southwest Region, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. 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-2024-0765. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> C. Jason Franklin, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (817) 222-5291; email: <E T="03">carl.j.franklin@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 all Airbus Helicopters Model EC 130 B4 and EC 130 T2 helicopters. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 1, 2024 (89 FR 22356). The NPRM was prompted by EASA AD 2022-0150, dated July 21, 2022 (EASA AD 2022-0150) (also referred to as “the MCAI”), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. The MCAI states that fatigue cracks may develop at the root section of certain part-numbered TRBs. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require repetitively fluorescent penetrant inspecting those TRBs and, depending on the results, accomplishing corrective action. The FAA also proposed to prohibit installing those TRBs unless certain actions are accomplished. The FAA is issuing this AD to address fatigue cracks on a TRB, which if not addressed, could result in crack propagation, TRB failure, and consequent loss of control of the helicopter. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03"> regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-0765. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from four commenters. The commenters were Air Medical Operators Association (AMOA), Air Methods, Airbus Helicopters, and Metro Aviation, Inc. The commenters requested changes regarding the repetitive fluorescent penetrant inspection (FPI) and inspector level requirements, and two commenters made remarks regarding differences between the FAA and EASA AD actions. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Regarding Inspector Level Requirements</HD> Air Methods, Airbus Helicopters, and Metro Aviation, Inc., requested the FAA change the proposed requirement for the inspection to be performed by a certified Level II or III inspector. Airbus Helicopters and Metro Aviation, Inc., stated that the Level II or Level III inspector requirement is burdensome and prohibitive to immediate operations. Air Methods requested the FAA explain this proposed requirement, which is not required by the Airbus Helicopters service information or EASA AD 2022-0150. Air Methods commented that a similar requirement was recently included in AD 2024-04-10, Amendment 39-22689 (89 FR 15431, March 4, 2024) (AD 2024-04-10), which resulted in the need for operators to immediately request FAA approval of an alternative method of compliance (AMOC) to avoid grounding the fleet due to unavailability of certified inspectors. The FAA agrees and has removed paragraph (h)(3) from this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Regarding FPI Requirements</HD> All commenters requested the FAA remove the proposed requirement for FPIs instead of Die Penetrant Inspection (DPI) and instead adopt EASA AD 2022-0150 without restrictions. Metro Aviation, Inc., stated that it has successfully accomplished DPIs of the affected TRBs with no unsatisfactory findings. Metro Aviation, Inc. also noted that the FAA's proposal is inconsistent with past ADs, as AD 2021-10-25, Amendment 39-21558 (86 FR 29176, June 1, 2021) (AD 2021-10-25), requires DPI of the same part-numbered TRBs and a global AMOC approved for AD 2024-04-10 showed that DPI provided an acceptable level of safety. AMOA expressed concern about the FAA's inconsistency and differences with the State of Design Authority as to the use of DPIs for cracks on certain TRBs. AMOA stated that the FAA did not explain what changed since the FAA issued AD 2021-10-25, which required the DPI method. AMOA further stated that it is unclear if the FAA followed its terms under the relevant bilateral agreement to accept the State of Design Authority's requirements and resolve differences. The FAA agrees to remove paragraph (h)(3) of the proposed AD, which would have required an FPI instead of a DPI. However, FPI remains the preferred method of compliance for this AD. Dye penetrant inspection methods involve the use of either visible (colored) penetrant or fluorescent penetrant. Alert Service Bulletin (ASB) EC130-05A041 specifies to perform a DPI with a general reference to Airbus Standard Practices Manual (MTC) 20-02-09-101. MTC 20-02-09-101, Crack detection through dye-penetrant inspection, dated May 25, 2016, identifies Type I (fluorescent penetrant) as the type of penetrant to be used and states Type II (colored penetrant) should be only used for a cross-check once a crack has been detected or otherwise with approval from Airbus Helicopters. The FAA reminds operators of the airworthiness concern regarding liquid penetrant inspection discussed in FAA Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) CE-18-26R1, dated October 30, 2018 (SAIB CE-18-26R1). SAIB CE-18-26R1 explains the risks associated with using visible DPI methods, including the prohibition in American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E1417 on the use of type 2 visible dye penetrant prior to the use of type 1 fluorescent penetrant on the same surface. SAIB CE-18-26R1 also advises of the importance of pre- and post-inspection cleaning to ensure proper detection of cracks. You can find SAIB CE-18-26R1 at <E T="03"> drs.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Additional Changes Made From the NPRM</HD> The FAA added paragraph (k) of this AD to allow revising the maintenance or inspection program as an optional terminating action for the repetitive inspections. Since the FAA issued the NPRM, EASA revised AD 2022-0150 and issued EASA AD 2022-0150R1, dated July 10, 2024 (EASA AD 2022-0150R1). EASA AD 2022-0150R1 does not require repeating the DPI because Airbus Helicopters revised the airworthiness limitations section (ALS) of the aircraft maintenance manual to include the repetitive inspection requirements addressed by EASA AD 2022-0150. The FAA is considering further rulemaking action to require incorporating the revised ALS into the existing maintenance manual or instructions for continued airworthiness and the existing maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, as terminating action for the repetitive inspections. The FAA removed paragraph (h)(4) of the proposed AD, which replaced the text “affected parts” with “serviceable parts,” since this exception is not necessary. The FAA revised paragraph (j) of the proposed AD, which would have prohibited special flight permits if there were a crack in the TRB, to instead prohibit all special flight permits. The TRB is a critical component of the helicopter, and flight in exceedance of the compliance threshold of this AD, as well as flight with a crack in the TRB, should not be permitted. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━