Airworthiness Directives; Various Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-0230; Project Identifier AD-2023-01064-A,Q,T; Amendment 39-23107; AD 2025-16-09]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Various 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 all airplanes with certain Pacific Scientific Company rotary buckle assemblies (buckles) installed. This AD was prompted by a report of a manufacturing defect in the screws used inside the buckle. This AD requires inspecting the buckle screws, and depending on the results, reidentifying the buckle, replacing the screws and reidentifying the buckle, or replacing the buckle. This AD also allows optionally prohibiting use of the seat until the actions required by this AD are accomplished. This AD also prohibits installing certain buckles on any airplane. 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 certain publications 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-2024-0230; 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 Parker Meggitt material identified in this AD, contact Parker Meggitt Services, 1785 Voyager Avenue, Simi Valley, CA 93063; phone: 877-666-0712; email: <E T="03">TechSuppor@meggitt.com;</E> website: <E T="03">Meggitt.com/services_and_support/customer_experience/update-on-buckle-assembly-service-bulletins.</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-2024-0230. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> David Kim, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 3960 Paramount Boulevard, Lakewood, CA 90712; phone: 562-627-5274; email: <E T="03">David.Kim@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 airplanes with a restraint system with a Pacific Scientific Company rotary buckle assembly (buckle) part number (P/N) 1111475 (all dash numbers) or P/N 1111548-01 installed having a date of manufacture (DOM) between January 2012 and September 2012 inclusive, or an unknown DOM. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 29, 2024 (89 FR 14783). The NPRM was prompted by a report of a manufacturing defect in the screws used inside the buckle. In the NPRM, for airplanes with the identified buckle, the FAA proposed to require inspecting the buckle screws, and depending on the results of that screw inspection, replacing the screws and reidentifying the buckle, or replacing the buckle. The FAA issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD that would apply to all airplanes with a restraint system with a Pacific Scientific Company rotary buckle assembly (buckle) P/N 1111475 (all dash numbers) or P/N 1111548-01 installed having a DOM between January 2012 and April 2013 inclusive, or an unknown DOM. The SNPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 11, 2025 (90 FR 9293). The SNPRM was prompted by discovery that an additional lot of screws are affected by the unsafe condition. The SNPRM proposed to require the same actions as those proposed in the NPRM, but with a broader applicability and updated service information. As an alternative, the SNPRM also proposed to allow removing the male side from the lap of the restraint system assembly and installing a placard stating that use of the seat is prohibited; use of that crewmember seat or passenger seat would then be prohibited until the proposed actions are accomplished and the male side from the lap of the restraint system assembly is reinstalled. The FAA is issuing this AD to prevent cracking and missing screw heads when under load. The unsafe condition, if not addressed could result in a failure of the buckle to restrain the occupant. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from Boeing and United Airlines who supported the SNPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from three commenters, including Delta Air Lines (Delta) and American Airlines (American). The following presents the comments received on the SNPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Apply Distinct P/N for Modified Buckles</HD> An individual commenter requested the FAA revise the SNPRM to require identifying the buckle with a distinct P/N and/or more durable label. The commenter stated that the current labeling system wears off over time, potentially increasing the risk of confusion regarding compliance status. Further, the commenter contended that a unique identifier for compliant buckles would prevent unnecessary reinspection and improve long-term regulatory adherence. The FAA disagrees. As the FAA stated in the SNPRM, the manufacturer introducing a new P/N for newly-manufactured parts is ideal; however, the FAA cannot mandate a company to change a P/N for an article. Applicable part-numbered buckles with an illegible or missing DOM, including those that may have never been marked, are considered as having an unknown DOM for the purposes of this AD and would be required to comply with the AD actions. The DOM marking was added to buckle P/N 1111475 (all dash numbers) starting in September 2012, while buckle P/N 1111548-01 has always been marked with the DOM. Additionally, part marking preservation and reidentification is the responsibility of the operators. No change has been made to this AD as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Clarify Screw Replacement Requirement</HD> American requested that the FAA clarify whether all four screws must be replaced if at least one of the four screws has a Torx head. American noted that the “Differences Between This SNPRM and the Referenced Material” section of the SNPRM stated that all four screws must be replaced with hex head screws if any number of Torx head screws are found, but that the required actions specify replacement of only Torx head screws. American stated it was not sure if a buckle would have a mix of screws. Delta requested that the FAA revise paragraphs (g)(1)(ii)(B) and (g)(2)(ii)(B) of the proposed AD to require replacing all four screws if at least one of the fours screws is found to have a Torx head. Delta explained that the current language might lead operators to interpret that only Torx head screws found need to be replaced, rather than all four, as stated in the referenced material. The FAA agrees to clarify the screw replacement requirement in this AD and disagrees with the request to require replacement of all four screws if at least one of the four screws has a Torx head. Although the material referenced in this AD specifies replacing all four screws if at least one screw is a Torx head, this AD only requires the replacement of Torx head screws. Hex head screws are not subject to the unsafe condition and therefore do not need to be replaced for the buckle to be considered airworthy. No change is necessary to this AD regarding these comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Extend Compliance Time</HD> An individual commenter requested that the FAA extend the proposed 12-month compliance time to a compliance time of 18 to 24 months, due to constraints such as parts availability and fleet size. The commenter stated that the FAA's assertion that replacement parts are readily available may not fully account for global supply chain delays. The FAA disagrees. The FAA determined the proposed 12-month compliance time after factoring the time needed to process the proposed AD before issuance of the final rule, as well as after evaluating the associated safety risks. According to the manufacturer, an ample number of spare parts and screws are in stock and will be available to modify the U.S. fleet within the required compliance time. To the extent spare parts may become unavailable, the FAA cannot base AD actions upon parts availability. While every effort is made to avoid grounding airplanes, the FAA must address the unsafe condition. The FAA did not make any changes to this final rule as a result of this comment. <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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed Parker Meggitt Service Bulletin SB 1111475-25-001-2023 and SB 1111548-25-001-2023, both Revision 002, both ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━