Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0758; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00651-T; Amendment 39-23192; AD 2025-23-09]</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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2022-15-05, which applied to certain Airbus SAS Model A318 series airplanes; Model A319-111, -112, -113, -114, -115, -131, -132, and -133 airplanes; Model A320-211, -212, -214, -216, -231, -232, and -233 airplanes; and Model A321-111, -112, -131, -211, -212, -213, -231, and -232 airplanes. AD 2022-15-05 required repetitive high frequency eddy current (HFEC) inspections for cracks on the web horizontal flange and inner cap, and applicable corrective actions. Since the FAA issued AD 2022-15-05, additional cracks have been found at the door stop fitting number 1 holes at frame (FR) 68, after disassembly of the door stop fitting as part of the inspections required by AD 2022-15-05. This AD continues to require the actions in AD 2022-15-05, but with reduced compliances times for some inspections, and requires an additional inspection at door stop fitting number 1. 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 13, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of January 13, 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-2025-0758; 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; 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> • 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-2025-0758. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Tim Dowling, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3667; email: <E T="03">timothy.p.dowling@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 2022-15-05, Amendment 39-22125 (87 FR 45013, July 27, 2022) (AD 2022-15-05). AD 2022-15-05 applied to all Airbus SAS Model A318-111, A318-112, A318-121, A318-122, A319-111, A319-112, A319-113, A319-114, A319-115, A319-131, A319-132, A319-133, A320-211, A320-212, A320-214, A320-216, A320-231, A320-232, A320-233, A321-111, A321-112, A321-131, A321-211, A321-212, A321-213, A321-231, and A321-232 airplanes, except those airplanes with certain modifications installed that convert the airplane to a corporate jet. AD 2022-15-05 required repetitive HFEC inspections for cracks on the web horizontal flange and inner cap and applicable corrective actions, in accordance with EASA AD 2022-0030, dated February 25, 2022 (EASA AD 2022-0030) which specifies using the original or later-approved revisions of Airbus Service Bulletin A320-53-1491. The FAA issued AD 2022-15-05 to address a report that cracks were found on the web horizontal flange and inner cap on FR 68, left-hand (LH) and right-hand (RH) sides, at stringer (STGR) 22, which could result in reduced structural integrity of the fuselage. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 16, 2025 (90 FR 20952). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0210, dated October 29, 2024, issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (EASA AD 2024-0210) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that after EASA AD 2022-0030 was issued, cracks have been found at the door stop fitting number 1 holes at FR 68, after the door stop fitting disassembly as part of the inspections in Airbus Service Bulletin A320-53-1491 Revision 1. Therefore, Airbus issued revision 2 of its service bulletin to include an additional inspection of the FR 68 door stop fitting number 1 holes with a larger inspection area, and an additional HFEC inspection on FR68 around the door stop fitting number 1 nuts. Some compliance times have been reduced and the procedures in the service bulletin have been updated. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to continue to require the actions in AD 2022-15-05, but with reduced compliances times for some inspections, and proposed to require an additional inspection at door stop fitting number 1, as specified in EASA AD 2024-0210. The FAA is issuing this AD to address cracks on the door stop 1, web horizontal flange and inner cap on FR 68, LH and RH sides, at STGR 22, which could result in reduced structural integrity of the fuselage. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-0758. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received a comment from Delta Air Lines (Delta). The following presents the comment and the FAA's response. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for an Exception To Address Outdated Material Number Reference</HD> Delta requested that the FAA modify paragraph (h) of the proposed AD to allow use of a compound having consumable material list (CML) code 12ADB1 instead of the compound having CML code 12ABC1 that is specified in the service information referenced by EASA AD 2024-0210. Delta explained that CML code 12ABC1 references a Type I corrosion inhibiting compound (CIC) which is a water dispersing compound used in the old temporary protection system (TPS) configuration which was phased out in the early 2000s. Delta added that CML code 12ABC1 was replaced by CML code 12ADB1, which is a Type III CIC having both water displacing and corrosion protection properties, and is prescribed by Delta's corrosion prevention control program (CPCP) and is also identified in section 51-23-12 of the A320 Structural Repair Manual section as the replacement for CML code 12ABC1. Delta stated that it requested and received confirmation from Airbus to use CML code 12ADB1 in lieu of CML code 12ABC1 and quoted Airbus as saying “it is acceptable to locally apply CML code 12ADB1 in lieu of 12ABC1 for the embodiment of SB 53-1491 for the re-protection of the inspection areas on Web Horizontal Flange Radii. . . .” The FAA agrees to add an exception to paragraph (h) of this AD to allow the use of CML code 12ADB1 in lieu of CML code 12ABC1. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</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 reviewed the relevant data, considered any comments received, and determined that air safety requires adopting this AD as proposed. Accordingly, the FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products. Except for minor editorial changes, and any other changes described previously, this AD is adopted as proposed in the NPRM. None of the changes will increase the economic burden on any operator. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed EASA AD 2024-0210 which specifies procedures for repetitive inspections of certain areas of the fuselage and taking corrective actions if there are cracks or discrepancies by following the manufacturer's service information. EASA AD 2024-0210 also specifies reporting all inspection findings to Airbus. Specifically, the inspections are high frequency eddy current inspections of the frame horizontal flange radii, inner cap fillet radius, the door stop 1 fasteners, and the frame inner cap corner at FR 68. The instructions for the inspections depend on whether a repair part has been installed. On-condition corrective actions include additional inspections for cracking, inspections to determine if a certain modification or repair was done, and repair of cracking at the web horizontal flange. 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">Costs of Compliance</HD> The FAA estimates that this AD affects 1,924 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,10,r30,r30"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs for Required Actions</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost per product ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━