Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-2542; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00397-R]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA proposes to supersede Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2022-19-13, which applies to all Airbus Helicopters Model AS355E, AS355-F, AS355-F1, AS355F2, AS355N, and AS355NP helicopters. AD 2022-19-13 requires incorporating into existing maintenance records certain requirements (airworthiness limitations). Since the FAA issued AD 2022-19-13, a determination was made that new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations are necessary. This proposed AD would require revising the airworthiness limitations section (ALS) of the existing maintenance manual (MM) or instructions for continued airworthiness (ICAs) and the existing approved maintenance or inspection program, as applicable. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The FAA must receive comments on this NPRM by October 30, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, using the procedures found in 14 CFR 11.43 and 11.45, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> . Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> 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">Hand Delivery:</E> Deliver to Mail address above between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">AD Docket:</E> You may examine the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-2542; 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 NPRM, the mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI), any comments received, and other information. The street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) material identified in this proposed AD, contact EASA, Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 3, 50668 Cologne, Germany; phone: +49 221 8999 000; email: <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu;</E> website: <E T="03">easa.europa.eu</E> . You may find the EASA material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu</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-2025-2542. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Matthew Williams, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (316) 946-4134; email: <E T="03">matthew.t.williams@faa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites you to send any written relevant data, views, or arguments about this proposal. Send your comments to an address listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-2542; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00397-R” at the beginning of your comments. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. The FAA will consider all comments received by the closing date and may amend the proposal because of those comments. Except for Confidential Business Information (CBI) as described in the following paragraph, and other information as described in 14 CFR 11.35, the FAA will post all comments received, without change, to <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> , including any personal information you provide. The agency will also post a report summarizing each substantive verbal contact received about this NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Confidential Business Information</HD> CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. If your comments responsive to this NPRM contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to this NPRM, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission containing CBI as “PROPIN.” The FAA will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the FOIA, and they will not be placed in the public docket of this NPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Matthew Williams, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. Any commentary that the FAA receives which is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The FAA issued AD 2022-19-13, Amendment 39-22182 (87 FR 57814, September 22, 2022) (AD 2022-19-13), for Airbus Helicopters Model AS355E, AS355F, AS355F1, AS355F2, AS355N, and AS355NP helicopters. AD 2022-19-13 was prompted by an MCAI originated by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA issued AD 2021-0193, dated August 20, 2021 (EASA AD 2021-0193) to address the identification of certain parts needing maintenance actions, including life limits and maintenance tasks. AD 2022-19-13 requires incorporating into existing maintenance records certain requirements (airworthiness limitations), as specified in EASA AD 2021-0193. The FAA issued AD 2022-19-13 to address the failure of certain parts, which could result in the loss of control of the helicopter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2022-19-13 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2022-19-13, EASA superseded AD 2021-0193 and issued EASA AD 2024-0134, dated July 10, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0134) (also referred to as the MCAI), to address an unsafe condition on all Airbus Helicopters Model AS 355 E, AS 355 F, AS 355 F1, AS 355 F2, AS 355 N, and AS 355 NP helicopters. The MCAI states that new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations and repetitive checks requirements have been developed. Additionally, the MCAI advises that the airworthiness limitations are identified as mandatory for continued airworthiness and that AH [Airbus Helicopters] has issued applicable ALS revisions to specify new and more restrictive life limits and maintenance tasks, which includes repetitive checks and inspection requirements. The FAA is issuing this proposed AD to prevent failure of critical parts and primary structural components, which if not addressed, could result in loss of control of the helicopter. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-2542. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Relationship Between This Proposed AD and Other Relevant Rulemaking</HD> EASA AD 2021-0193 notes that the requirements of EASA AD 2010-0006, dated January 7, 2010 (EASA AD 2010-0006) (which prompted FAA AD 2011-22-05 R1, Amendment 39-17765 (79 FR 14169, March 13, 2014) (AD 2011-22-05 R1)) and EASA AD 2015-0094, dated May 29, 2015 (EASA AD 2015-0094) (which prompted FAA AD 2016-25-20, Amendment 39-18746 (81 FR 94954, December 27, 2016) (AD 2016-25-20)) have been incorporated into the applicable ALS specified in EASA AD 2021-0193. Accordingly, this proposed AD does not supersede AD 2011-22-05 R1 or AD 2016-25-20. Rather, the FAA has determined that a stand-alone AD is more appropriate to address the changes in EASA AD 2024-0134, which superseded EASA AD 2021-0193. Therefore, accomplishment of the required actions in this proposed AD terminates all of the requirements of AD 2011-22-05 R1 and AD 2016-25-20 for Model AS355E, AS 355-F, AS 355-F1, AS355F2, AS355N, and AS355NP helicopters only. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2024-0134, which specifies replacing components before exceeding their life limits and accomplishing all applicable maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals specified in the ALS as defined in EASA AD 2024-0134. Depending on the results of the maintenance tasks, EASA AD 2024-0134 requires accomplishing corrective action(s) or contacting Airbus Helicopters for approved instructions and accomplishing those instructions. Additionally, EASA AD 2024-0134 specifies revising the Aircraft Maintenance Programme (AMP) by incorporating the limitations, tasks, and associated thresholds and intervals described in the specified ALS, as applicable. Revising the AMP constitutes terminating action for the requirement to record accomplishment of the actions of replacing components before exceeding their life limits and accomplishing maintenance tasks within thresholds and intervals specified in the applicable ALS as specified in EASA AD 2024-0134 for demonstration of AD compliance on a continued basis. 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">FAA's Determination</HD> These products have been approved by the civil aviation authori ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━