Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0213; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00385-T; Amendment 39-23115; AD 2025-17-05]</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 superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2017-14-14, which applied to all Airbus SAS Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, and -232 airplanes. AD 2017-14-14 required repetitive inspections for cracking in the cabin floor beam junction at certain fuselage frame locations and repair if necessary. Since the FAA issued AD 2017-14-14, further analysis determined that the compliance times for the inspections must also be based on flight hours. This AD continues to require the actions in AD 2017-14-14, revises compliance times, and adds a provision for optional modifications. 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 October 1, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of October 1, 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-2025-0213; 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-2025-0213. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Timothy Dowling, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3667; email: <E T="03">timothy.p.dowling@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 to supersede AD 2017-14-14, Amendment 39-18958 (82 FR 33002, July 19, 2017) (AD 2017-14-14). AD 2017-14-14 applied to all Airbus SAS Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, and -232 airplanes. AD 2017-14-14 required repetitive inspections for cracking in the cabin floor beam junction at certain fuselage frame locations and repair if necessary. The FAA issued AD 2017-14-14 to detect and correct cracking in the cabin floor beam junction at certain fuselage frame locations, which could result in reduced structural integrity of the airplane. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 27, 2025 (90 FR 10801). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0128, dated July 3, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0128) (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 the manufacturer developed a modification that restores the fatigue potential at each location (junction) by doing cold-working at the cabin floor beam and fitting junction for airplanes with a pre-mod 155607 configuration. The manufacturer also developed optional modification instructions for airplanes with a post-mod 155607 configuration. These modifications can be used to extend the compliance time for an inspection cycle. In addition, further analysis determined that the compliance times for the inspections must also be based on flight hours. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to continue to require the actions in AD 2017-14-14 and to revise compliance times and add a provision for optional modifications, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0128. 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-2025-0213. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from an individual who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from an anonymous commenter and ProTech Aero Services Limited (ProTech). The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Confirm Use of Later Revisions Is Allowed</HD> ProTech requested the FAA confirm that the proposed AD would allow the use of later-approved revisions of the material specified in EASA AD 2024-0128, as acceptable for compliance with the AD requirements. This AD does allow the use of later-approved revisions of the material referenced in EASA AD 2024-0128 as acceptable for compliance with the required actions. This AD adopts the “Ref. Publications” section of EASA AD 2024-0128, which includes the current version of the referenced material as well as later approved revisions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Consider Alternatives to Repetitive Inspections</HD> The anonymous commenter suggested that the FAA should explore the feasibility of design modifications or reinforcements to eliminate the need for repetitive inspections. The commenter stated design improvements can provide long-term solutions to structural issues. The FAA acknowledges the commenter's concern. The FAA evaluated the available information and determined that the actions required by this AD are sufficient to address the unsafe condition. However, under the provisions of paragraph (j)(1) of this AD, any person may request approval of an alternative method of compliance (AMOC), including design improvements or other alternatives, if the proposal provides an acceptable level of safety. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Reduce Inspection Intervals</HD> The anonymous commenter requested that the FAA reduce the inspection intervals proposed in the NPRM. The commenter reasoned that frequent inspections have been shown to identify structural issues before they escalate. The FAA does not agree to reduce the inspection intervals. A full-scale fatigue test campaign was performed on a Model A321 airframe, and the test results were used to determine an appropriate inspection interval. The FAA also considered the safety implications, parts availability, and normal maintenance schedules for timely accomplishment of the repetitive inspections. In consideration of all of these factors, the FAA determined that the compliance time, as proposed, represents an appropriate interval in which the affected cabin floor beam junctions can be inspected in a timely manner within the fleet, while still maintaining an adequate level of safety. If additional data are presented that would justify a shorter compliance time, the FAA may consider further rulemaking. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Confirm Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Methods Were Considered</HD> The anonymous commenter asked whether the FAA has considered mandating advanced NDT methods such as ultrasonic or eddy current inspections. The commenter asserted that advanced NDT methods would enhance detection of subsurface cracks. The FAA is aware of those NDT inspections and requires such inspections where appropriate or necessary for detecting cracks. It was determined that detailed inspections are sufficient for addressing the unsafe condition of this AD. However, under the provisions of paragraph (j)(1) of this AD, any person may request approval of an AMOC to use other types of inspections if the proposal provides an acceptable level of safety. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Require Inspection Reporting</HD> The anonymous commenter stated that operators should be required to report all findings of cracks to the FAA to facilitate data collection and trend analysis. The commenter reasoned that reports aid in identifying patterns and prevent issues. The FAA does not agree to require reporting. In certain cases, the FAA might determine that additional information ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> data collection) is needed to understand the problem and develop appropriate mitigation for an unsafe condition. In this case, because the safety concern was found during a full-scale fatigue test campaign, the unsafe condition was identified and a corrective action was developed without the need to require additional operator reports. However, an operator may still choose to send relevant inspection information to the FAA. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Mitigate the Financial Impact</HD> The anonymous commenter asked the FAA what measures will be taken to mitigate the economic impact of the proposed inspections on small operators. The commenter stated that small operators may face financial challenges in complying with frequent inspections. The F ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━