Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-5042; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00438-T]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes</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) 2024-24-09, which applies to all Airbus SAS Model A318 and A320 series airplanes; Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, -133, -151N, -153N, and -171N airplanes; and Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. AD 2024-24-09 requires the actions in AD 2022-24-05, provides optional terminating action for the repetitive inspections, revises the list of affected parts, and prohibits the installation of affected parts under certain conditions. Since the FAA issued AD 2024-24-09, the list of additional affected galley part numbers has been revised. This proposed AD would continue to require the actions in AD 2024-24-09 and would revise the list of affected parts. 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 January 20, 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-2025-5042; 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; telephone +49 221 8999 000; email <E T="03">ADs@easa.europa.eu.</E> You may find this material on the EASA website at <E T="03">ad.easa.europa.eu.</E> It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-5042. • 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Evan Weaver, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 316-944-8910; email: <E T="03">Evan.P.Weaver@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-2025-5042; Project Identifier MCAI-2025-00438-T” 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 Evan Weaver, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 316-944-8910; email: <E T="03">Evan.P.Weaver@faa.gov.</E> 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 2024-24-09, Amendment 39-22899 (89 FR 97499, December 9, 2024) (AD 2024-24-09), for all Airbus SAS Model A318, and A320 series airplanes; Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, -133, -151N, -153N, and -171N airplanes; and Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -251NX, -252N, -252NX, -253N, -253NX, -271N, -271NX, -272N, and -272NX airplanes. AD 2024-24-09 was prompted by an MCAI originated by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA issued AD 2024-0038, dated February 5, 2024, to correct an unsafe condition. AD 2024-24-09 requires repetitive inspections of certain galleys for corrosion of trolley retainer aluminum blocks and delamination of the upper panel of the trolley compartment, and applicable corrective action; provides optional terminating action for the repetitive inspections; revises the list of affected parts; and prohibits the installation of affected parts under certain conditions. The FAA issued AD 2024-24-09 to address damage that could affect the galley's capability to hold the trolley under emergency landing loads, which could lead to trolley detachment, possibly resulting in blocking of an escape path during an emergency exit. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2024-24-09 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2024-24-09, EASA superseded EASA AD 2024-0038, dated February 5, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0038) and issued EASA AD 2025-0068, dated March 28, 2025 (EASA AD 2025-0068) (also referred to as the MCAI), to correct an unsafe condition for all Airbus SAS Model A318-111, -112, -121, and -122 airplanes; Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, -133, -151N, -153N, and -171N airplanes; Model A320-211, -212, -214, -215, -216, -231, -232, -233, -251N, -252N, -253N, -271N, -272N, and -273N airplanes; and Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, -232, -251N, -252N, -253N, -271N, -272N, -251NX, -252NX, -253NX, -271NX, and -272NX airplanes. Model A320-215 airplanes are not certificated by the FAA and are not included on the U.S. type certificate data sheet; this proposed AD therefore does not include those airplanes in the applicability. The MCAI states that it was identified that galleys having part numbers 601891-006801, 601891-003701, and 601891-010001 were missing in Appendix 1 of EASA AD 2024-0038, and it was identified that galleys having part number 6019A3-000101 are not affected by the unsafe condition addressed by that AD. Damage, if not detected and corrected, could affect the galley's capability to hold the trolley under emergency landing loads, which could lead to trolley detachment, possibly resulting in blocking of an escape path during an emergency exit. The FAA is proposing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-5042. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Explanation of Retained Requirements</HD> Although this proposed AD does not explicitly restate the requirements of AD 2024-24-09, this proposed AD would retain all of the requirements of AD 2024-24-09. Those requirements are referenced in EASA AD 2025-0068, which, in turn, is referenced in paragraph (g) of this proposed AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2025-0068, which includes the following provisions: • Procedures for repetitive general visual inspections of certain galleys for discrepancies including cracks and corrosion of trolley retainer aluminum blocks and delamination of upper panel of trolley compartment; • Corrective actions including repeating the inspection, repairing the trolley compartment upper panel, and limiting the trolley weight; • Procedures for modifying the affected galleys as optional terminating action for the repetitive inspections; • A revised the list of affected galleys; and • Prohibition of the installation of affected parts unless the parts are inspected and corrected. 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">ADDRESSE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━