Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0473; Project Identifier AD-2024-00281-T; Amendment 39-23167; AD 2025-20-14]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company 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 superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2018-26-03, which applied to all The Boeing Company Model 757-200 series airplanes. AD 2018-26-03 required, for the Captain's and First Officer's seats, repetitive horizontal actuator identifications, repetitive checks of the horizontal movement system (HMS), a detailed inspection of the HMS, as applicable, and applicable on-condition actions. AD 2018-26-03 also required a general visual inspection to determine the seat part numbers of the Captain's and First Officer's seats, a cable adjustment check on seats with certain seat part numbers, and applicable on-condition actions. This AD was prompted by reports of uncommanded movement of the Captain's and First Officer's seats. This AD retains the requirements of AD 2018-26-03 and adds an inspection for previously omitted part numbers. 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 January 2, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in this AD as of January 2, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain other publication listed in this AD as of January 31, 2019 (83 FR 66612, December 27, 2018). </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-2025-0473; 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 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 Boeing material identified in this AD, contact Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Attention: Contractual & Data Services (C&DS), 2600 Westminster Blvd., MC 110-SK57, Seal Beach, CA 90740-5600; telephone 562-797-1717; website <E T="03">myboeingfleet.com.</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-2025-0473. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Julie Linn, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3584; email: <E T="03">Julie.Linn@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 to supersede AD 2018-26-03, Amendment 39-19533 (83 FR 66612, December 27, 2018) (AD 2018-26-03). AD 2018-26-03 applied to all The Boeing Company Model 757-200 series airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on March 31, 2025 (90 FR 14213). The NPRM was prompted by reports of uncommanded movement of the Captain's and First Officer's seats and the determination that additional seats are affected by the unsafe condition. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to continue to require the actions in AD 2018-26-03 and add an inspection for previously omitted part numbers. The FAA is issuing this AD to address uncommanded movement of the Captain's and First Officer's seat, which could lead to reduced controllability of the airplane. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from the Air Line Pilots Association, International and ProTech Aero Services Limited who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA also received comments from Boeing, Delta Air Lines (Delta), and an anonymous commenter. The following presents those comments and the FAA's response. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Clarify Seat Applicability for Acceptable Conditions for Compliance</HD> Delta requested the FAA revise paragraph (m) of the proposed AD to clarify that it applies to an Ipeco Captain's or First Officer's seat currently installed on an airplane. Delta stated that paragraph (m) of the proposed AD could be interpreted as applying to all seats currently installed on an airplane, or seats that were previously modified as required by AD 2018-26-03. The FAA agrees with the commenter's rationale and has revised paragraph (m) of this AD to specify the paragraph applies to seats installed on an airplane. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Revise the Acceptable Conditions for Compliance</HD> Boeing requested the FAA revise paragraph (m) of this AD to state that, if airplane records show an Ipeco Captain's or First Officer's seat meets either one of two conditions for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308 in table 1 to paragraph (m) of the proposed AD, then the actions in paragraphs (g) and (h), as applicable, of the proposed AD are not required for that seat; and if the records show that a seat meets either one of two conditions for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0309 in table 1 to paragraph (m) of the proposed AD, then the actions in paragraphs (j) and (k), as applicable, of the proposed AD are not required for that seat. Boeing stated this change would clarify that accomplishment of either Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308 or 757-25-0309 alone does not alleviate both adverse conditions of the seats, and that actions in both service bulletins are necessary. Boeing also stated that one row for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308 must be completed for the HMS issue to satisfy the requirements of paragraphs (g) and (j) of the proposed AD, and one row must be completed for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0309 to satisfy the requirements of paragraphs (h) and (k) of the proposed AD. The FAA agrees with the intent of the commenter's request and has revised paragraph (m) of this AD to match the language the FAA adopted in other ADs that address the same unsafe condition on other Boeing airplane models. Paragraph (m) of this AD states, in part, if airplane records show a seat installed on an airplane meets the conditions in any of the three rows for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308 in table 1 to paragraph (m) of this AD, then the actions in paragraphs (g) and (j), as applicable, of this AD are not required for that seat; and if the airplane records show a seat installed on an airplane meets the conditions in any of the three rows for Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0309 in table 1 to paragraph (m) of this AD, then the actions specified in paragraphs (j) and (k), as applicable, of this AD are not required for that seat. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Correct Service Bulletin Reference</HD> Boeing and Delta requested that the FAA correct three references to service bulletin number “777-25-0309” in table 1 to paragraph (m) of the proposed AD. The commenters stated the correct reference is Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0309. The FAA agrees and has revised table 1 to paragraph (m) of this AD accordingly. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Add Service Information as Acceptable Conditions for Compliance</HD> Delta requested that the FAA add Ipeco Service Bulletin 258-25-16, Issue 4, dated September 11, 2017; and Issue 5, dated April 29, 2020, to table 1 to paragraph (m) of the proposed AD. Delta stated that these service bulletins embody the HMS inspection and overhaul of the Captain's and First Officer's seats. Delta noted that, under the proposed table, compliance is acceptable ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the actions specified in paragraphs (g), (h), (j), and (k) of the proposed AD are not required) if actions are done in accordance with Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308, Revision 1, dated June 7, 2018, and additional actions are done in accordance with Ipeco Service Bulletin 258-25-15, Issue 4, dated February 16, 2018; Issue 5, dated April 29, 2020; or Issue 6, dated November 1, 2021, for Ipeco part number (P/N) 3A258-0007-01-1 or 3A258-0008-01-1 with horizontal actuator Artus P/N AD8650503 at “Amendment C” or later. Delta also noted that Revision 1 of Boeing Special Attention Service Bulletin 757-25-0308, and Revision 2, dated June 12, 2023, allow accomplishment of Issue 4 of Ipeco Service Bulletin 258-25-16 for Ipeco P/N 3A258-0007-01-1 or 3A258-0008-01-1. Delta stated that accomplishing Issue 4, 5, or 6 of Ipeco Service Bulletin 258-25-15 triggers repetitive inspections of the seats but accomplishing Issue 4 or 5 of Ipeco Service Bulletin 258-25-16 terminates those repetitive inspections. The FAA agrees with the commenter's request for the reasons provided above. Accordingly, the FAA has included the additional service information in table 1 to paragraph (m) of this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Emphasize Whistleblower Protections</HD> An anonymous commenter stated the proposed AD should explicitly remind operators of the strong whistleblower protections with anti-retaliatory safeguards for mechanics, flightcrews, and inspectors who report recurring or unresolved seat movement issu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 40k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━