Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2023-2398; Project Identifier AD-2023-00423-T; Amendment 39-23129; AD 2025-18-02]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company 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 all The Boeing Company Model 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. This AD was prompted by a report indicating that the oxygen supply tubing can become kinked when certain passenger service unit (PSU) oxygen panel assemblies are installed in the forward-most position of a center stow bin. This AD requires a one-time inspection of the affected PSU oxygen panel assemblies and applicable on-condition actions. This AD also prohibits the installation of affected parts. 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 22, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of October 22, 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-2023-2398; 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 Boeing material identified in this AD, contact Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Contractual & Data Services (C&DS), 2600 Westminster Blvd., MC 110-SK57, Seal Beach, CA 90740-5600; telephone 562-797-1717; website <E T="03">myboeingfleet.com.</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-2023-2398. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joshua Baek, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 562-627-6725; email: <E T="03">Joshua.Y.Baek@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 all The Boeing Company Model 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10 airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 22, 2023 (88 FR 88544). The NPRM was prompted by a report indicating that the oxygen supply tubing can become kinked when certain PSU oxygen panel assemblies are installed in the forward-most position of a center stow bin. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require a one-time inspection of the affected PSU oxygen panel assemblies and applicable on-condition actions. In the NPRM, the FAA also proposed to prohibit the installation of affected parts. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the incorrect installation of the oxygen supply tubing in the PSU oxygen panel assemblies. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from The Boeing Company (Boeing), American Airlines (American), All Nippon Airways (All Nippon), and United Airlines (United). The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to each comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Clarify the NPRM Background</HD> Boeing requested the FAA revise the second sentence of the Background paragraph of the NPRM to clarify that the PSU reverse bottle oxygen panel assembly drawing restructure introduced a conflict between the lower- and upper-level assembly drawings for center-installed panel assemblies only, and that PSU reverse bottle oxygen panel assembly drawings for outboard-installed panel assemblies were not impacted. Boeing stated that, following the drawing restructure, only the center-installed PSU reverse bottle oxygen panel assemblies had the lower-level assembly drawings with incorrect routing definition. Boeing also requested the FAA revise the third sentence of the Background paragraph of the NPRM to clarify that, after the drawing restructure, the upper-level assembly drawings had maintained the correct routing design intent. Boeing stated that the upper-level assembly drawings had the correct routing design intent before and after the drawing restructure, and that the upper-level assembly drawings were not impacted. The FAA partially agrees. The FAA agrees with Boeing's clarifications of the background information. However, the FAA has not revised the AD because that information is not restated in the Background paragraph of this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Extend the Compliance Time</HD> American requested that the FAA extend the compliance time to 48 months. All Nippon and United requested it be extended to 36 months. American and All Nippon stated that a 24-month compliance time would require operators to schedule special maintenance visits and possibly require airplanes to be out of service, and United stated it would be burdensome to operators. American, All Nippon, and United also stated that extending the compliance time would allow operators to accomplish the AD requirements during scheduled C-checks, which would have the least impact on operators. United stated that providing an extra 24 months to comply with the AD will not significantly decrease the level of safety. The FAA agrees to extend the compliance time to 36 months and has revised paragraphs (h)(1), (2), and (3) of this AD accordingly. The FAA does not agree to extend the compliance time to 48 months. In developing an appropriate compliance time for this action, the FAA considered the recommendations of the manufacturer, the urgency associated with the unsafe condition, the availability of required parts, and the practical aspect of accomplishing the required actions within a period of time that corresponds to normal scheduled maintenance for most affected operators. In consideration of these items, the FAA has determined that a 36-month compliance time will ensure an acceptable level of safety. Extending the compliance time will allow operators to work within existing maintenance schedules and act as soon as reasonably practical. However, under the provisions of paragraph (k) of this AD, the FAA will consider requests for approval of an extension of the compliance time if sufficient data are submitted to substantiate that the new compliance time would provide an acceptable level of safety. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Refer to Later Revision of Boeing Service Information</HD> Boeing requested that the FAA revise the proposed AD to reference Issue 002 of Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletins B787-81205-SB250277-00 RB and B787-81205-SB250278-00 RB instead of Issue 001. Boeing stated it will be releasing Issue 002 of those service bulletins no later than July 12, 2024, in order to reference Revision 2 of Collins Aerospace Service Bulletins 4572105-25-001, 4572175-25-001, and 4572185-25-001. The FAA does not agree with the request. Issue 002 of the Boeing requirements bulletins have not been issued, and the publication date is yet to be determined. To delay this action until the revised service information is published would be inappropriate since the FAA has determined that an unsafe condition exists and actions must be conducted to ensure continued safety. Operators may apply for approval to use later revisions as an alternative method of compliance (AMOC) with this AD under the provisions of paragraph (k) of this AD. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Refer to Later Revisions of Collins Aerospace Service Information</HD> American, All Nippon, and United requested that Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletins B787-81205-SB250277-00 RB and B787-81205-SB250278-00 RB, both Issue 001, both dated February 15, 2023, be revised to reference Collins Aerospace Service Bulletins 4572105-25-001, 4572175-25-001, and 4572185-25-001, all Revision 2, all dated November 6, 2023. The FAA acknowledges the commenters' concern. The FAA notes that, among various actions, Issue 001 of the Boeing requirements bulletins specifies to replace the oxygen supply tubing if certain damage is found, using instructions in Revision 1 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins. The FAA has reviewed Revision 2 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins and found that the instructions for this replacement have been removed from the service bulletins. In addition, the FAA has found that certain paragraphs in Revision 2 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins have been reidentified, which has resulted in paragraph misalignment between actions specified in Issue 001 of the Boeing requirements bulletins and Revision 2 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins. The FAA has therefore determined that the differences between Revision 1 and Revision 2 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins make it impractical to include an exception in this AD that would allow use of Revision 2 of the Collins Aerospace service bulletins in conjunction with Issue 001 of the Boeing requirements bulletins. As discussed in the previous comment, the FAA has determined that it would b ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━