Airworthiness Directives; Cameron Balloons Ltd. Fuel Cylinders

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-3433; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-01302-Q; Amendment 39-23173; AD 2025-21-01]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Cameron Balloons Ltd. Fuel Cylinders</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 superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2025-11-10, which applied to Cameron Balloons Ltd. (Cameron) fuel cylinders fitted with certain pressure relief valve (PRV) adaptors on hot air balloons. AD 2025-11-10 required repetitively visually checking the PRV adaptor for cracks and removing any fuel cylinder with a cracked PRV adaptor from service. Since the FAA issued AD 2025-11-10, a new replacement part was introduced into service. This AD retains the repetitive check and removal requirements of AD 2025-11-10 and also requires replacement of the PRV adaptor as terminating action for the repetitive checks. 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 27, 2025. The FAA must receive comments on this AD by November 24, 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-2025-3433; 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 street address for Docket Operations is listed above. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> George Weir, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (817) 222-4045; email: <E T="03">george.a.weir@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-2025-3433; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-01302-Q” 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 <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 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 George Weir, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. 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 issued AD 2025-11-10, Amendment 39-23056 (90 FR 23269, June 2, 2025) (AD 2025-11-10), to correct an unsafe condition on hot air balloons with Cameron fuel cylinders fitted with PRV adaptor part number (P/N) CB8426. AD 2025-11-10 was prompted by an MCAI originated by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is the airworthiness authority for the United Kingdom (UK). The UK CAA issued Emergency AD G-2025-0001R1-E, dated April 11, 2025, (CAA UK Emergency AD G-2025-0001R1-E) to correct an unsafe condition identified as cracks on the upper hex portion of PRV adaptors. AD 2025-11-10 required repetitively visually checking the fuel cylinder PRV adaptor for cracks, reporting any findings of a crack, and removing any fuel cylinder with a cracked PRV adaptor from service. A cracked PRV adaptor could lead to uncontrolled leakage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which could result in an in-flight fire and consequent emergency landing. The FAA issued AD 2025-11-10 to address the unsafe condition on these products. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2025-11-10 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2025-11-10, the UK CAA superseded CAA UK Emergency AD G-2025-0001R1-E and issued CAA UK Emergency AD G-2025-0004-E, dated August 1, 2025 (CAA UK Emergency AD G-2025-0004-E) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that after an examination of 10 additional failed components and subsequent metallurgical analysis, a new replacement PRV adaptor was introduced into service to better address the unsafe condition. The MCAI requires repetitively visually checking the fuel cylinder PRV adaptor for cracks, removal from service of any fuel cylinder with a cracked PRV adaptor, and replacement of the PRV adaptor as terminating action for the repetitive checks. This condition, if not addressed, could lead to uncontrolled leakage of LPG, which could result in an in-flight fire and consequent emergency landing. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-3433. <HD SOURCE="HD1">FAA's Determination</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 is issuing this AD 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">AD Requirements</HD> This AD retains the repetitive check and removal requirements of AD 2025-11-10 and also requires replacement of the PRV adaptor as terminating action for the repetitive checks. The owner/operator (pilot) holding at least a private pilot certificate may perform the visual check and must enter compliance with the applicable paragraph(s) of the AD into the balloon maintenance records in accordance with 14 CFR 43.9(a) and 91.417(a)(2)(v). The pilot may perform this action because it only involves visually checking each PRV adaptor for cracks. This action could be performed equally well by a pilot or a mechanic. This is an exception to the FAA's standard maintenance regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This AD and the MCAI</HD> The MCAI applies to hot air balloons and certain airships. This AD only applies to hot air balloons because the airships identified in the MCAI do not have an FAA type certificate. Although the MCAI specifies that if any fuel cylinder is found with a cracked PRV adaptor, it must be emptied of fuel prior to being removed from service, this AD does not require that action. While that action is encouraged for the general safety related to the leakage of LPG, it is not required to address the unsafe condition identified in this AD. <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 found that the risk to the flying public justifies forgoing notice and comment prior to adoption of this rule because an LPG leak on the fuel cylinder could result in an in-flight fire or explosion, damaging the hot air balloon and leading to a forced emergency landing, which could injure balloon occupants and persons on the ground. Additionally, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━