Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0742; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00682-T; Amendment 39-23133; AD 2025-18-06]</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) 2020-02-14, which applied to certain Airbus SAS Model A350-941 and -1041 airplanes. AD 2020-02-14 required a one-time inspection of the oxygen containers and adjacent panels and applicable corrective actions. Since the FAA issued AD 2020-02-14, it was determined that additional airplanes may be affected by the same unsafe condition. This AD continues to require the actions in AD 2020-02-14 and expands the applicability to include additional airplanes. 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 23, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of October 23, 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-2025-0742; 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> . • For Airbus material identified in this AD, contact Airbus SAS, Airworthiness Office—EAL, Rond-Point Emile Dewoitine No: 2, 31700 Blagnac Cedex, France; telephone +33 5 61 93 36 96; fax +33 5 61 93 45 80; email <E T="03">continued-airworthiness.a350@airbus.com;</E> website <E T="03">airbus.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-2025-0742. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nicole Tsang, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3959; email: <E T="03">Nicole.S.Tsang@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 2020-02-14, Amendment 39-19828 (85 FR 6757, February 6, 2020) (AD 2020-02-14). AD 2020-02-14 applied to certain Airbus SAS Model A350-941 and -1041 airplanes. AD 2020-02-14 required a one-time inspection of the oxygen containers and adjacent panels, and applicable corrective actions. The FAA issued AD 2020-02-14 to address damaged and unlocked fasteners of the oxygen containers and adjacent panels in the passenger supply channels (PSCs), which could result in insufficient clearance between the oxygen container and adjacent panels and prevent the opening of the oxygen containers, and consequent failure of the oxygen masks to deploy and provide supplemental oxygen in case of an in-flight decompression, possibly resulting in injury to cabin occupants. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 29, 2025 (90 FR 17743). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0220, dated November 20, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0220) (also referred to as the MCAI), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European. The MCAI states that since EASA AD 2019-0210, dated August 26, 2019, was issued, it was determined that additional A350 manufacturer serial numbers (airplanes) may be affected by the same unsafe condition. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to continue to require the actions in AD 2020-02-14 and expand the applicability to include additional airplanes, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0220. 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-2025-0742. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received a comment from an anonymous commenter who supported the NPRM without change. <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 2024-0220, which specifies procedures for inspecting the oxygen containers and the installation of adjacent panels located in all PSCs, to check that each fastener of each panel/component is locked and to measure the clearance between the oxygen container door lid and the adjacent panel/component. EASA AD 2024-0220 also describes procedures for applicable corrective actions, including attaining minimum clearance, locking any unlocked fasteners, and replacing damaged parts. The FAA also reviewed Airbus Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) A35P015-19, Revision 01, dated June 19, 2019. This material identifies affected airplanes for the Group 1 airplanes specified in EASA AD 2024-0220. The FAA also reviewed Airbus AOT A35P023-24, Revision 01, dated July 25, 2024. This material identifies affected airplanes for the Group 2 airplanes specified in EASA AD 2024-0220. 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 19 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,10,10,xs90"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> Cost on U.S. operators </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Retained actions from AD 2020-02-14</ENT> <ENT>4 work-hours × $85 per hour = $340</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$340</ENT> <ENT>$5,440 (16 airplanes).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">New actions</ENT> <ENT>4 work-hours × $85 per hour = $340</ENT> <ENT>0</ENT> <ENT>340</ENT> <ENT>$1,020 (3 airplanes).</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,12C,16C"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs of On-Condition Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost per product</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">1 work-hour × $85 per hour = $85</ENT> <ENT>* $0</ENT> <ENT>$85</ENT> </ROW> <TNOTE>* The FAA has received no definitive data on the parts costs for the on-condition actions.</TNOTE> </GPOTABLE> <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 “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, (2) Will not affect intrastate aviation in Alaska, and (3) Will not have a significant economic impact, positive or negative, on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 39</ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━