Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.A. Helicopters

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-2556; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00034-R]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.A. 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) 2021-23-04 which applies to certain Leonardo S.p.A. Model A109E helicopters. AD 2021-23-04 requires repetitive inspections of the intersection of the lateral pylon and floor spar at station (STA) 1815 for cracking and repair, depending on the findings. Since the FAA issued AD 2021-23-04, it was determined that additional helicopter models are affected by the unsafe condition. Additionally, the manufacturer has developed a modification that provides terminating action for the repetitive inspections. This proposed AD would continue to require repetitive inspections of the affected area for cracking and would add additional helicopter models to the applicability. This proposed AD would also require modifying the affected area, which would be terminating action for the repetitive inspections. 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 proposed AD by November 14, 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-2025-2556; 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 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 NPRM, 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 Pkwy., Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. For information on the availability of this material at the FAA, call (817) 222-5110. The EASA material is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-2556. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dan McCully, Program Manager, International Validation Branch, FAA, 1600 Stewart Ave., Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (404) 474-5548; email: <E T="03">william.mccully@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-2025-2556; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00034-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 this 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 Dan McCully, Program Manager, International Validation Branch, FAA, 1600 Stewart Ave., Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. Any commentary that the FAA receives that 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 2021-23-04, Amendment 39-21802 (86 FR 68892, December 6, 2021) (AD 2021-23-04), for Leonardo S.p.a. Model A109E helicopters. AD 2021-23-04 requires repetitive inspections of the intersection of the lateral pylon and floor spar at STA 1815 for cracking and, depending on the findings, repair, as specified in EASA AD 2020-0256, dated November 17, 2020 (EASA AD 2020-0256). The FAA issued AD 2021-23-04 to address cracking in the intersection of the lateral pylon and floor spar at STA 1815 on the left- and right-hand sides, which, if not addressed, could affect the structural integrity of the helicopter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2021-23-04 Was Issued</HD> After the FAA issued AD 2021-23-04, EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union, issued superseding EASA AD 2022-0153, dated July 28, 2022 (EASA AD 2022-0153), to correct an unsafe condition for Leonardo S.p.A. Helicopters Model A109E helicopters, all serial numbers (S/N); Model A109S helicopters, all S/Ns up to 22199 inclusive; and Model A109LUH helicopters, all S/Ns. EASA AD 2022-0153 was issued after it was determined that additional helicopters may be affected by the unsafe condition described in EASA AD 2020-0256; therefore, EASA AD 2022-0153 retained the requirements of EASA AD 2020-0253, which was superseded, and increased the applicability by expanding applicable Model A109E helicopters to all S/Ns and adding all Model A109LUH and certain serial-numbered Model A109S helicopters. After EASA AD 2022-0153 was issued, Leonardo developed a modification which provides terminating action for the repetitive inspections; EASA subsequently issued EASA AD 2024-0004, dated January 5, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0004) (also referred to as the MCAI), which supersedes EASA AD 2022-0153, retains the inspection requirements of EASA AD 2022-0153, and requires a modification, which consists of a fuselage reinforcement, of the affected area as terminating action for the repetitive inspections. This proposed AD was prompted by reports of cracking in the center fuselage frame assembly in the intersection of the lateral pylon and floor spar at STA 1815 on the left- and right-hand sides and the subsequent development of a modification to that area to prevent cracking. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could affect the structural integrity of the helicopter. You may examine EASA AD 2024-0004 in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-2556. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> EASA AD 2024-0004 specifies procedures for repetitive inspections of STA 1815 for cracking, fluorescent liquid penetrant inspections of any cracking to determine the extent of the cracking, or other damage, such as deformation or corrosion, and modifying the affected area by reinforcing the fuselage, which would provide terminating action for the repetitive inspections. 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 authority (CAA) 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. The FAA is issuing this NPRM after determining that the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop on other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed AD Requirements in This NPRM</HD> This proposed AD would require accomplishing the actions specified in EASA AD 2024-0004, described previously as incorporated by reference, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this proposed AD. See “Differences Between this Proposed AD and the MCAI” for a discussion of the general differences included in this proposed AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━