Airworthiness Directives; Textron Aviation Inc. Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-3424; Project Identifier AD-2025-01362-A; Amendment 39-23164; AD 2025-20-11]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Textron Aviation Inc. Airplanes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Textron Aviation Inc. (Textron) Model B200GT, B200CGT, B300, and B300C airplanes. This AD was prompted by a report of rudder control pushrod failure during a production ground run, caused by sheared rivets off of a rudder control pushrod. This AD requires a visual inspection of the attaching rivets of the pilot and copilot rudder control pushrods for incorrect rivets and replacement if necessary. 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 17, 2025. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of October 17, 2025. The FAA must receive comments on this AD by November 17, 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-2025-3424; 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 street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <E T="03">Material Incorporated by Reference:</E> • For Beechcraft material identified in this AD, contact Textron, One Cessna Boulevard, Wichita, KS 67215; phone: (316) 517-6061; email: <E T="03">customercare@txtav.com;</E> website: <E T="03">www.txtav.com.</E> • You may view this material at the FAA, Airworthiness Products Section, Operational Safety Branch, 901 Locust, Kansas City, MO 64106. 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-2025-3424. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> David Enns, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1801 S Airport Road, Wichita, KS 67209; phone: (316) 946-4147; email: <E T="03">david.enns@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 data, views, or arguments about this final rule. Send your comments using a method listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-3424; Project Identifier AD-2025-01362-A” at the beginning of your comments. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the final rule, 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 final rule 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 regulations.gov, including any personal information you provide. The agency will also post a report summarizing each substantive verbal contact received about this final rule. <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 AD 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 AD, 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 AD. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to David Enns, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1801 S Airport Road, Wichita, KS 67209. 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 received a report that, during a production ground run for a Textron Model B200GT airplane, two rivets sheared off of a rudder control pushrod, causing the rudder control pushrod to fail. It was discovered that an incorrect type of rivet may have been installed during installation of the rudder control pushrod end that does not meet the strength requirements of the type design. Failure of a rudder control pushrod may result in a rudder jam or loss of rudder control. This condition, if not addressed, could result in loss of control of the airplane during flight or ground operations. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. <HD SOURCE="HD1">FAA's Determination</HD> The FAA is issuing this AD because the agency determined the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed Beechcraft Mandatory Service Letter MTL-27-07, dated July 25, 2025 (Beechcraft Mandatory SL MTL-27-07), which specifies procedures for a visual inspection of the attaching rivets of the pilot and copilot rudder control pushrods for incorrect rivets and replacement if necessary. 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">AD Requirements</HD> This AD requires accomplishing the actions specified in Beechcraft Mandatory SL MTL-27-07 described previously. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Justification for Immediate Adoption and Determination of the Effective Date</HD> Section 553(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) authorizes agencies to dispense with notice and comment procedures for rules when the agency, for “good cause,” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under this section, an agency, upon finding good cause, may issue a final rule without providing notice and seeking comment prior to issuance. Further, section 553(d) of the APA authorizes agencies to make rules effective in less than thirty days, upon a finding of good cause. An unsafe condition exists that requires the immediate adoption of this AD without providing an opportunity for public comments prior to adoption. The FAA has determined that the risk to the flying public justifies forgoing notice and comment prior to adoption of this rule because incorrect rivets used during installation of the rudder control pushrod do not meet the strength requirements of the type design. Failure of a rudder control pushrod may result in a rudder jam or loss of rudder control. Rudders are critical components to maintaining controlled flight and a rudder jam could lead to a loss of rudder control, and loss of control of the airplane. This condition could result at any time and without warning. Thus, the FAA has determined that the airplanes must be inspected within 20 hours time-in-service or 30 days, whichever occurs first. This compliance time is shorter than the time necessary for the public to comment and for publication of the final rule. Accordingly, notice and opportunity for prior public comment are impracticable and contrary to the public interest pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(b). In addition, the FAA finds that good cause exists pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(d) for making this amendment effective in less than 30 days, for the same reasons the FAA found good cause to forgo notice and comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The requirements of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) do not apply when an agency finds good cause pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553 to adopt a rule without prior notice and comment. Because the FAA has determined that it has good cause to adopt this rule without prior notice and comment, RFA analysis is not required. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Costs of Compliance</HD> The FAA estimates that this AD affects 89 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,12,12,12"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Cost per product </CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost on U.S. operators</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Inspect rudder control pushrod rivets</ENT> <ENT>8 work-hours × $85 per hour = $680</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>$680</ENT> <ENT>$60,520</ENT> </RO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━