Airworthiness Directives; ATR-GIE Avions de Transport Régional Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0210; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00469-T; Amendment 39-23119; AD 2025-17-09]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; ATR—GIE Avions de Transport Régional 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 ATR—GIE Avions de Transport Régional Model ATR72 airplanes. This AD was prompted by a determination that new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations are necessary. This AD requires revising the existing maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, to incorporate new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This AD is effective September 29, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of September 29, 2025. </DATES> <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-2025-0210; 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-2025-0210. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Fatin Saumik, Aviation Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: 516-228-7350; email: <E T="03">fatin.r.saumik@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 ATR—GIE Avions de Transport Régional Model ATR72-101, -102, -201, -202, -211, -212, and -212A airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 24, 2025 (90 FR 10465). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0159, dated August 16, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0159) (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 new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations have been developed. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require revising the existing maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, to incorporate new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0159. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the failure of the chemical oxygen mask release system to release the mask when necessary, resulting in possible injury to passengers and crew. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0210. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) who supported the NPRM without change. <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 2024-0159, which specifies new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations for airplane structures and safe life limits. 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 40 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: The FAA has determined that revising the existing maintenance or inspection program takes an average of 90 work-hours per operator, although the agency recognizes that this number may vary from operator to operator. Since operators incorporate maintenance or inspection program changes for their affected fleet(s), the FAA has determined that a per-operator estimate is more accurate than a per-airplane estimate. Therefore, the agency estimates the average total cost per operator to be $7,650 (90 work-hours × $85 per work-hour). <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> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="39"> <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 39.13</SECTNO> <SUBJECT>[Amended]</SUBJECT> </SECTION> 2. The FAA amends § 39.13 by adding the following new airworthiness directive: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2"> <E T="04">2025-17-09 ATR—GIE Avions de Transport Régional:</E> Amendment 39-23119; Docket No. FAA-2025-0210; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00469-T. </FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">(a) Effective Date</HD> This airworthiness directive (AD) is effective September 29, 2025. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(b) Affected ADs</HD> None. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(c) Applicability</HD> This AD applies to ATR—GIE Avions de Transport Régional Model ATR72-101, -102, -201, -202, -211, -212, and -212A airplanes, certificated in any category, as identified in European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD 2024-0159, dated August 16, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0159). <HD SOURCE="HD1">(d) Subject</HD> Air Transport Association (ATA) of America Code 05, Time Limits/Maintenance Checks. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(e) Unsafe Condition</HD> This AD was prompted by a determination that new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations are necessary. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the failure of the chemical oxygen mask release system to release the mask when necessary, resulting in possible injury to passengers and crew. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(f) Compliance</HD> Comply with this AD within the compliance times specified, unless already done. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(g) Requirements</HD> Except as specified in paragraph (h) of this AD: Comply with all required actions and compliance times specified in, and in accordance with, EASA AD 2024-0159. <HD SOURCE="HD1">(h) Exceptions to EASA AD 2024-0159</HD> (1) This AD does not adopt the requirements ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━