Airworthiness Directives; MD Helicopters, LLC

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2009; Project Identifier AD-2023-01286-R; Amendment 39-23121; AD 2025-17-11]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; MD Helicopters, LLC</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 MD Helicopters, LLC, Model 369 (Army YOH-6A), 369A (Army OH-6A), 369D, 369E, 369F, 369FF, 369H, 369HE, 369HM, 369HS, 500N, and 600N helicopters. This AD was prompted by multiple reports of cracked tail rotor (T/R) pedal support brackets. This AD requires repetitively inspecting certain part-numbered T/R pedal support brackets and depending on the results, replacing the T/R pedal support bracket or refinishing any exposed areas. This AD also prohibits installing certain part-numbered T/R pedal support brackets. 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 10, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of October 10, 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-2024-2009; 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 MD Helicopters material identified in this AD, contact MD Helicopters, LLC, 4555 East McDowell Road, Mesa, AZ 85215-9734; phone: (480) 346-6300; email: <E T="03">info@mdhelicopters.com</E> ; website: <E T="03">mdhelicopters.com/contact/</E> . • You may view this material at the FAA, Office of the Regional Counsel, Southwest Region, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call (817) 222-5110. It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2009. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Eduardo Orozco-Duran, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 3960 Paramount Boulevard, Lakewood, CA 90712; phone: (562) 627-5264; email: <E T="03">eduardo.orozco-duran@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 MD Helicopters, LLC, Model 369 (Army YOH-6A), 369A (Army OH-6A), 369D, 369E, 369F, 369FF, 369H, 369HE, 369HM, 369HS, 500N, and 600N helicopters with certain part-numbered T/R pedal support brackets installed. The NPRM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 28, 2024 (89 FR 68837). The NPRM was prompted by multiple reports of cracked T/R pedal support brackets, including a report of a forced emergency landing that was caused by a cracked magnesium cast T/R pedal support bracket. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require repetitively inspecting magnesium cast T/R pedal support brackets having P/N 369A7505-7, 369A7505-8, 369A7505-14, or 369A7505-15, and aluminum cast T/R pedal support brackets having P/N 369N2640-1 or 369N2640-2, and depending on the results, replacing the T/R pedal support bracket or refinishing any exposed areas. The FAA also proposed to prohibit installing magnesium cast T/R pedal support bracket P/N 369A7505-7, 369A7505-8, 369A7505-14, or 369A7505-15 on any helicopter. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from five commenters. The commenters were Bering Air Inc, MD Helicopters, an individual, and two anonymous commenters. An anonymous commenter and the individual supported the proposal without change, MD Helicopters and an anonymous commenter commented on the estimated costs to comply with the AD, Bering Air Inc, MD Helicopters, and an anonymous commenter requested different requirements for aluminum cast T/R pedal support brackets, and MD Helicopters requested changing the repetitive nondestructive inspections (NDIs). The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Regarding the Costs of Compliance</HD> MD Helicopters and an anonymous commenter commented on the costs of the NDIs. MD Helicopters stated that it believes the estimated cost information and the requirements proposed in the NPRM create an undue burden on operators. MD Helicopters stated that the work-hours and cost information to accomplish an NDI provided in the NPRM are very low, and that the FAA needs to do an availability assessment of certified NDI inspectors, as operators will likely have to remove and ship the bracket to a facility for the NDIs. MD Helicopters further stated that the cost information does not account for removing and reinstalling a bracket for this alternate action or its administrative costs such as shipping costs, nor does it account for lost revenue while the helicopter is out of service. MD Helicopters also stated that a large portion of operators would need to do an NDI two to three times per year. An anonymous commenter stated that the estimated cost information in the NPRM to accomplish an NDI is too low. The anonymous commenter stated that a Level II or Level III (inspector certified in the FAA-acceptable standards for NDI personnel) for two hours of work is between $500-$800, plus incidentals such as travel costs, which travel costs could double or triple compliance costs particularly for those in remote locations. The anonymous commenter further stated that the cost of repetitive inspections for some operators needs to be properly accounted for and the alternate option of treating the bracket as a rotatable part could also be costly. The FAA acknowledges the commenters' concerns regarding the NDIs and the availability of Level II or Level III inspectors. The cost information specified in AD rulemaking describes only the direct costs of the specific actions required by the AD. The manufacturer specified its best estimate of the number of work-hours necessary to accomplish an NDI in the material incorporated by reference. This number represents the time necessary to perform an NDI required by this AD. The FAA recognizes that, in doing the actions required by an AD, operators might incur incidental costs in addition to the direct costs. The cost analysis in AD rulemaking does not include indirect or incidental costs such as time for planning, down-time, loss of revenue, or other administrative actions since those costs might vary significantly among operators. In addition, the labor rate of $85 per work-hour for the FAA to use when estimating the labor costs of complying with AD requirements is provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found at <E T="03">bls.gov/oes/current/oes493011.htm</E> . Lastly, the FAA recognizes that this AD may require operators to accomplish multiple instances of the repetitive NDIs each year on certain helicopters, particularly high usage helicopters as the high usage rate increases the likeliness of occurrence of T/R pedal support bracket cracking. Because of these comments, the FAA completed a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) for this AD to analyze its impact on small businesses and updated the number of affected helicopters. Further information regarding that analysis is provided in the Regulatory Flexibility Determination paragraph in the preamble of this final rule. While the costs for a Level II or Level III inspector do not impact the cost estimate, FAA evaluation removed the proposed requirement that the inspections must be performed by a Level II or Level III inspector certified in the FAA-acceptable standards for nondestructive inspection personnel. This may assist in each operator's incidental costs associated with the requirements of this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Regarding Requirements for Aluminum Parts</HD> Bering Air Inc, MD Helicopters, and an anonymous commenter requested different requirements for aluminum cast T/R pedal support brackets (P/Ns 369N2640-1 and 369N2640-2). Bering Air Inc, asked why the same inspections for magnesium brackets are also required for aluminum brackets, since there have been no reports of cracks in the aluminum brackets. Bering Air Inc, questioned how many of the cracked 17 magnesium brackets were caused by corrosion and stated that the magnesium brackets have the issues, possibly due to poor corrosion control. The FAA infers that Bering Air Inc, is requesting the FAA to remove or differentiate requirements for aluminum cast T/R pedal support brackets having P/N 369N2640-1 or 369N2640-2. The type design holder, MD Helicopters, stated that it believes aluminum cast T/R pedal support brackets having P/N 369N2640-1 or 369N2640-2 should not be included in the applicability of this AD because they have not experienced a problem as existing visual inspections specified in the maintenance manual are adequate. MD Helicopters explained that these brackets incorporate a protective coating and are not as susceptible to corrosion issues or fatigue cracking compared to the magnesium brackets. Lastly, MD Helicopters ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━