Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2556; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00247-T; Amendment 39-23146; AD 2025-19-06]</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 adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Airbus SAS Model A300 series airplanes; Model A300 B4-600, B4-600R, and F4-600R series airplanes, and Model A300 C4-605R Variant F airplanes (collectively called Model A300-600 series airplanes); and Model A310 series airplanes. This AD was prompted by investigations that found cracks on the main deck cargo door (MDCD) actuator bearing fitting caused by fatigue. This AD requires an operational limitation to the MDCD opening angle, repetitive detailed visual inspection (DET) of the MDCD actuator bearing fittings, and replacement if any cracks are found. 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 31, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of October 31, 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-2024-2556; 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-2024-2556. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joshua Y. 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 certain Airbus SAS Model A300 series, A300-600 series, and A310 series airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 13, 2024 (89 FR 100926). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0092R1, dated July 10, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0092R1) (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 investigations found cracks on the MDCD actuator bearing fitting caused by fatigue. There is no unsafe condition during flight when the cargo door is fully closed, latched, and locked. However, if not detected and corrected, this cracking could lead to MDCD undamped free fall from the open position during MDCD operations or during cargo loading/off-loading, resulting in injury to people on the ground. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require an operational limitation to the MDCD opening angle, repetitive DET of the MDCD actuator bearing fittings, and replacement if any cracks are found, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0092R1. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2024-2556. The FAA issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) to amend 14 CFR part 39 by adding an AD that would apply to certain Airbus SAS Model A300 series, A300-600 series, and A310 series airplanes. The SNPRM was published in the <E T="04"> Federal Register </E> on May 6, 2025 (90 FR 19160). The SNPRM was prompted by the FAA's determination that the applicability must be revised to add airplanes. In the SNPRM, the FAA proposed to require the same actions as those proposed in the NPRM, but with a broader applicability that includes airplanes modified in accordance with certain FAA supplemental type certificates. 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 FedEx Express who supported the SNPRM and had an additional comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Allow Changes to Operator's Internal Manuals To Comply With Operational Limitation Requirements</HD> FedEx Express requested that the FAA approve operator changes in their internal manuals to keep door operations limited to 70 degrees to comply with the proposed AD's operational limitation requirements. The FAA notes that this AD does not specify how operators must comply with the operational limitation. Therefore, operators may change their internal manuals such that the airplane is operated as specified in this AD. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <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 SNPRM. 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 2024-0092R1, which specifies procedures for an operational limitation to the MDCD opening angle, repetitive DET of the MDCD actuator bearing fittings, and replacement of both MDCD actuator bearing fittings if any crack is found on any MDCD actuator bearing fitting. 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">Interim Action</HD> The FAA considers that this AD is an interim action. If final action is later identified, the FAA might consider further rulemaking then. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Costs of Compliance</HD> The FAA estimates that this AD affects 243 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,12C,12C,12C"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> Cost on U.S. operators </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">1 work-hour × $85 per hour = $85</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$85</ENT> <ENT>$20,655</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA estimates the following costs to do any necessary on-condition actions that would be required based on the results of any required actions. The FAA has no way of determining the number of airplanes that might need this on-condition action: <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s100,12C,12C"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs of On-Condition Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <ENT I="01">500 work-hours × $85 per hour = $42,500</ENT> <ENT>$34,600</ENT> <ENT>$77,100</ENT> </ROW> </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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━