Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0200; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00627-T; Amendment 39-23114; AD 2025-17-04]</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 A330-200, A330-200 Freighter, A330-300, A330-800, and A330-900 series airplanes. This AD was prompted by an incorrect shot peening application being implemented in production starting from 2008. This AD requires repetitive detailed inspections (DET) of certain splice fittings and, depending on findings, repair. 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-2025-0200; 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-2025-0200. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Stefanie Roesli, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3964; email: <E T="03">stefanie.n.roesli@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 A330-200, A330-200 Freighter, A330-300, A330-800, and A330-900 series airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 13, 2025 (90 FR 9520). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0200, dated October 21, 2024, issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (EASA AD 2024-0200) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that an incorrect shot peening application has been implemented in production starting from 2008. Fatigue life of affected parts (certain splice fittings) can consequently be lower than the certified value. This condition, if not detected and corrected, could adversely affect the structural integrity of the airplane. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require repetitive DET of certain splice fittings and, depending on findings, repair, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0200. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0200. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received a comment from the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from two individual commenters. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Allow Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)</HD> Two individual commenters requested that the proposed AD be revised to allow NDT techniques, such as ultrasonic or eddy current inspections, rather than rely solely on detailed visual inspections. The commenters noted that NDT methods are widely used in aviation and can detect internal cracks that may not be visible, which reduces the risk of undetected structural failures and minimizes aircraft downtime. The FAA disagrees with the commenters' requests. EASA, as the state of design authority for these airplanes, analyzed the data, considered the recommendations of the manufacturer, and determined that detailed inspections are adequate to address the unsafe condition. The FAA concurs with EASA's determination. The FAA has not changed this AD in response to this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Allow a Risk-Based Inspection Schedule</HD> Two individual commenters suggested that a risk-based inspection schedule could optimize resources by allowing airplanes with fewer operational hours to undergo inspections at longer intervals. The commenters stated that this strategy is used in other airworthiness directives and would enhance the proposed rule's effectiveness without imposing an excessive burden on operators. The FAA disagrees with the commenters' requests. EASA, as the state of design authority for these airplanes, performed a risk assessment and determined the compliance time was appropriate based on the safety implications of the identified unsafe condition, as well as the practical aspect of completing the required actions during regular maintenance periods. However, the FAA will consider requests for an alternative method of compliance (AMOC) as specified in paragraph (i)(1) of this AD if sufficient data are submitted to substantiate that a risk-based inspection schedule would provide an acceptable level of safety. The FAA has not changed this AD in response to this comment. <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 2024-0200, which specifies procedures for repetitive DET of affected parts (splice fittings at the front windshield side post, on left-hand (LH) and right-hand (RH) sides, having part number (P/N) F531-23024-200 and P/N F531-23024-201, respectively) for cracking, and depending on findings, repairing cracking. 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 58 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,12C,12C,12C"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> Cost on U.S. operators </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">5 work-hours × $85 per hour = $425</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$425</ENT> <ENT>$24,650</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for the on-condition repairs 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 “s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━