Airworthiness Directives; Various Helicopters

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-3986; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00224-R]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Various 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 adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Helicopters Model H160-B, EC 225LP, AS-365N3, and AS 332L2 helicopters; all Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model EC135P1, EC135P2, EC135P2+, EC135P3, EC135T1, EC135T2, EC135T2+, EC135T3, and EC635T2+ helicopters; all Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model MBB-BK 117 C-2, MBB-BK 117 D-2, and MBB-BK 117 D-3 helicopters; and all Leonardo S.p.A. Model AB139, AW109SP, AW139, AW169, and AW189 helicopters. This proposed AD was prompted by reports that certain rescue hoist assemblies may have been equipped with a non-conforming overload clutch assembly. This proposed AD would require replacing each affected rescue hoist assembly with a serviceable rescue hoist assembly. This proposed AD would also prohibit installing an affected rescue hoist assembly unless certain requirements are met. 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 NPRM by January 5, 2026. </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-2025-3986; 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 proposed AD, 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 this 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 Parkway, Room 6N-321, Fort Worth, TX 76177. 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-2025-3986. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Adam Hein, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (316) 946-4116; email: <E T="03">adam.hein@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 using a method listed under the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section. Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-3986; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00224-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 Adam Hein, 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> EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union, has issued EASA AD 2025-0051R1, dated May 7, 2025 (EASA AD 2025-0051R1) (also referred to as the MCAI), to correct an unsafe condition on Airbus Helicopters Model H160-B, EC 175 B, EC 225 LP, AS 365 N3, and AS 332 L2 helicopters, all serial numbers; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model EC135 P1, EC135 P2, EC135 P2+, EC135 P3, EC135 T1, EC135 T2, EC135 T2+, EC135 T3, EC635 P2+, EC635 P3, EC635 T1, EC635 T2+, and EC635 T3 helicopters, all variants and all serial numbers; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model MBB-BK117 C-2, MBB-BK117 D-2, MBB-BK117 D-3, and MBB-BK117 D-3m helicopters, all variants and all serial numbers; and Leonardo S.p.A. Model AW109SP, AB139, AW139, AW169, and AW189 helicopters, all serial numbers. The MCAI states the manufacturer of the affected rescue hoists reported that certain rescue hoist assemblies may have been equipped, during manufacturing or maintenance, with a non-conforming overload clutch assembly. This condition, if not corrected, could lead to failure of the rescue hoist assembly, in-flight failure of the rescue hoist, and consequent injury to a person being lifted or to persons on the ground. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-3986. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2025-0051R1, dated May 7, 2025. This material identifies the affected rescue hoist assemblies and specifies procedures for replacing the affected rescue hoist assembly with a serviceable rescue hoist assembly. EASA AD 2025-0051R1 also prohibits installing an affected rescue hoist assembly unless certain requirements are met. 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 referenced above. 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 2025-0051R1, described previously, as incorporated by reference, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this AD. See “Differences Between this Proposed AD and the MCAI” for a discussion of the general differences included in this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences Between This Proposed AD and the MCAI</HD> The MCAI applies to Airbus Helicopters Model EC 175 B helicopters, Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model EC635 P2+, EC635 P3, EC635 T1, and EC635 T3 helicopters, and Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model MBB-BK 117 D-3m helicopters, whereas this proposed AD would not because those models do not have an FAA type certificate. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Explanation of Required Compliance Information</HD> In the FAA's ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of the AD process, the FAA developed a process to use some CAA ADs as the primary source of information for compliance with requirements for corresponding FAA ADs. The FAA has been coordinating this process with manufacturers and CAAs. As a result, the FAA proposes to incorporate EASA AD 2025-0051R1 by reference in the FAA final rule. This proposed AD would, therefore, require compliance with EASA AD 2025-0051R1 in its entirety through that incorporation, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this proposed AD. Using common terms that are the same as the heading of a particular section in EASA AD 2025-0051R1 does not mean that operators need comply only with that section. For example, where the AD requireme ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━