Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0907; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00634-T; Amendment 39-23104; AD 2025-16-06]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS 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 Airbus SAS Model A319-112 and -132 airplanes, and Model A320-214, -232, -233, -251N, and -271N airplanes. This AD was prompted by rivet holes being left unplugged after bracket relocation or removal accomplished during certain modifications, potentially resulting in fatigue damage starting from those rivet holes. This AD requires a one-time special detailed inspection (SDI) of the rivet holes and applicable corrective actions; and allows the installation of certain modifications, provided rivets are installed after the modification. 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-2025-0907; 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; telephone +49 221 8999 000; email <E T="03">ADs@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, 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-2025-0907. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nathan Weigand, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; telephone 206-231-3531; email <E T="03">nathan.p.weigand@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 Airbus SAS Model A319-112 and -132 airplanes, and Model A320-214, -232, -233, -251N, and -271N airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 19, 2025 (90 FR 21247). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0204, dated October 22, 2024, issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (EASA AD 2024-0204) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that rivet holes were left unplugged after bracket relocation or removal, potentially resulting in fatigue damage starting from those rivet holes and consequent reduced structural integrity of the airplane. The rivet holes were left unplugged due to certain optional modification material not providing instructions to reinstall rivets after removing brackets. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require a one-time SDI of the rivet holes and applicable corrective actions; and to allow the installation of certain modifications, provided rivets are installed after the modification, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0204. The FAA is issuing this AD to address this condition, which if not detected and corrected, could affect the structural integrity of the airplane. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0907. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received no comments on the NPRM or on the determination of the cost to the public. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</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 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, 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 EASA AD 2024-0204, which specifies procedures for a one-time SDI of the rivet holes for any discrepancy (missing or incorrect rivets and cracks) and, depending on findings, accomplishment of applicable corrective actions ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> repairing cracks, obtaining instructions for addressing incorrect rivets, and installing oversized rivets). For airplanes that have not installed certain optional modifications, EASA AD 2024-0204 allows installing an optional modification, provided that rivets are installed after the modification. 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 289 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,xs54,16C,xs90"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <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">Up to 8 work-hours × $85 per hour = $680</ENT> <ENT>Minimal</ENT> <ENT>$680</ENT> <ENT>Up to $196,520.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for the on-condition actions specified in this AD. 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 have federalism implications under Executive Order 13132. This AD will not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. For the reasons discussed above, I certify that this AD: (1) Is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, (2) Will not affect intrastate aviation in Alaska, and (3) Will not have a significant economic impact, positive or negative, on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 39</HD> Air transportation, Aircraft, Aviation safety, Incorporation by reference, Safety. </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Amendment</HD> Accordingly, under the authority delegated to me by the Administrator, the FAA amends 14 CFR part 39 as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 39—AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVES</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="39"> 1. The authority citation for part 39 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 49 U.S.C. 106(g), 40113, 44701. </REGTEXT> <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 39.13</SECTNO> <SUBJECT>[Amended]</SUBJECT> </SECTION> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="39"> 2. The FAA amends § 39.13 by adding the following new airworthiness directive: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2"> <E T="04">2025-16-06 Airbus SAS:</E> Amendment 39-23104; Docket No. FAA-2025-0907; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00634-T. </FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">(a) Effective Date</HD> This airworthiness directive (AD) is effective September 22, 2025. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(b) Affected ADs</HD> None. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(c) Applicability</HD> This AD applies to Airbus SAS airplanes identified in paragraphs (c)(1) and (2) of thi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━