Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0214; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00391-R; Amendment 39-23099; AD 2025-16-02]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH</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 adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model MBB-BK 117 C-2 and MBB-BK 117 D-2 helicopters. This AD was prompted by reports of significant wear of the spherical bearings of the control rod assembly and pitch link assembly. This AD requires measuring the radial play of certain spherical bearings of control rod assemblies and pitch link assemblies, reporting the results, and depending on the results, taking corrective action. This AD also prohibits installing certain control rod assemblies and pitch link assemblies unless certain requirements are met. 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 12, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of January 12, 2026. </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-2025-0214; 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 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 European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) material identified in this 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 the EASA 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-2025-0214. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Michael Mueller, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (847) 294-7543; email: <E T="03">michael.j.mueller@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 by adding an AD that would apply to all Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH Model MBB-BK 117 C-2 and MBB-BK 117 D-2 helicopters. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 26, 2025 (90 FR 10705). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0131, dated July 8, 2024 (EASA AD 2024-0131) (also referred to as the MCAI), issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. The MCAI states there have been reports of significant wear of the spherical bearings of control rod assemblies and pitch link assemblies having part number 105-13122, B623M3001101, D623M3201101, or D623M3201102. This condition, if not detected and corrected, could lead to erroneous pitch and oscillations of the main rotor blades and consequent loss of control of the helicopter. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require measuring the radial play of certain spherical bearings of control rod assemblies and pitch link assemblies, reporting the results, and depending on the results, taking corrective action. The NPRM also prohibited installing certain control rod assemblies and pitch link assemblies unless certain requirements are met. The FAA is issuing 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-2025-0214. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from two commenters. The commenters were an individual and the Air Medical Mechanics Organization (AMMO). The individual commenter expressed support for the proposed AD as written. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to the comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Incorporate Requirements Directly Into the AD</HD> AMMO commented that the practice of relying on manufacturer-issued and foreign regulatory documents that are not fully integrated into the rule text creates ambiguity, enforcement concerns, and procedural noncompliance under Section 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) Part 39 and the Administrative Procedure Act. The commenter requested that the FAA incorporate the complete inspection method, measurable thresholds, and response actions directly into the AD text. The commenter also requested that the FAA provide FAA-originated inspection criteria and field-level illustrations. The FAA disagrees with the request. In the FAA's ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of the AD process, the FAA developed a process to use some civil aviation authority ADs as the primary source of information for compliance with requirements for corresponding FAA ADs. This AD incorporates EASA AD 2024-0131 by reference. Incorporation by reference (IBR) allows Federal agencies to comply with the requirement to publish rules in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> by referring to materials already published elsewhere. The legal effect of IBR is that the material is treated as if it were published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . This AD would, therefore, require compliance with EASA AD 2024-0131 in its entirety through that incorporation, except for any differences identified as exceptions in the regulatory text of this AD. The complete inspection method, measurable thresholds, and corrective actions are included in EASA AD 2024-0131 and the material referenced in EASA AD 2024-0131. Material referenced in EASA AD 2024-0131 for compliance will be available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0214. This material, like any other properly issued rule, has the force and effect of law, thus preventing any ambiguity, enforcement concerns, and procedural noncompliance issues under 14 CFR 39 and the Administrative Procedure Act. In addition, Congress authorized IBR in the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), in part, to reduce the volume of material published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and the CFR. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Provide Standardized Terminology</HD> AMMO stated that certain words used in the EASA AD and the material referenced in the EASA AD are ambiguous and not standardized FAA terminology. It requested that the FAA provide standardized FAA terminology for field-observed symptoms such as “play” or “clicking.” The FAA agrees that there could be certain words in the EASA AD and the material referenced in the EASA AD that are ambiguous. In these instances, the FAA writes exceptions to eliminate such ambiguity. For example, the term “play,” specified in EASA AD 2024-0131, is subjective. In paragraph (h)(2) of this AD, the FAA specifies that this AD does not adopt paragraph (1) and (2) of EASA AD 2024-0131. This exception removes the ambiguous term “play” from the requirements of this AD. In addition, in paragraph (h)(2) of this AD the FAA requires measurement of the radial play of the two spherical bearings of each affected part. The service bulletin then specifies actions based on the radial play measurements. By requiring these measurements, the term “play” is unambiguous in this AD. The term “clicking” referenced in the service bulletin is not part of the required actions. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Alternate Means of Reporting</HD> AMMO claimed that a line mechanic cannot be expected to navigate Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) reporting portals and requested that the FAA avoid exclusive reliance on OEM digital platforms for compliance reporting in the proposed AD. The FAA disagrees with the request. EASA AD 2024-0131 identifies the on-line questionnaire referenced in the Alert Service Bulletin (ASB) as an acceptable method to comply with the reporting requirement, but it does not specify that it is the only acceptable method to comply with the reporting requirement. EASA AD 2024-0131 provides the website address for Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH, which identifies contact information for the appropriate service area. The FAA has not changed this AD in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Coordinate With Flight Standards Field Personnel</HD> AMMO stated that the FAA did not coordinate with Flight Standards field personnel to validate the AD's practical executability, as required by FAA's internal policy. The commenter suggested that the FAA coordinate the proposed AD with Flight Standards to validate the AD's practical executability. The FAA disagrees with the implication that Flight Standards did not review the proposed AD. The FAA coordinates all AD actions with the appropriate Flight Standards Office before issuance. The FAA has not ch ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━