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-2025-0749; Project Identifier AD-2025-00179-T; Amendment 39-23189; AD 2025-23-06]</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 adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain The Boeing Company Model 787-9 and 787-10 airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of multiple supplier notices of escapement (NOEs) documenting pressure deck splice fittings that were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. This AD requires an inspection of the attach fittings and upper splice fitting of the stub beam horizontal pressure deck (HPD) to determine the type of titanium alloy material and applicable on-condition actions. 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-2025-0749; 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 the 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-2025-0749. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joseph Hodgin, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 206-231-3962; email: <E T="03">joseph.j.hodgin@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 certain The Boeing Company Model 787-9 and 787-10 airplanes. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 14, 2025 (90 FR 20411). The NPRM was prompted by reports of multiple supplier NOEs documenting pressure deck splice fittings that were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require an inspection of the attach fittings and upper splice fitting of the stub beam HPD to determine the type of titanium alloy material, and applicable on-condition actions. The FAA is issuing this AD to address pressure deck splice fittings that were possibly manufactured with an incorrect titanium alloy material, which could result in premature cracks in a pressure deck splice fitting and lead to loss of residual strength of the surrounding structure, resulting in the inability to sustain limit load. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from United Airlines, who stated that it had no objections to the proposed rule, and an anonymous commenter who supported the NPRM without change. The FAA received additional comments from American Airlines (American) and Boeing. The following presents those comments and the FAA's response. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Clarify Inspection Instructions</HD> American requested that the FAA revise the proposed AD to state that either an X-ray fluorescent (XRF) or high frequency eddy current (HFEC) inspection method is acceptable for compliance with the proposed AD. The commenter expressed concern that paragraph (g) of the proposed AD specifies doing all applicable actions identified in, and in accordance with, the Accomplishment Instructions of Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB530091-00 RB, Issue 001, dated February 7, 2025, but the inspection instructions in the requirements bulletin do not clearly state that doing an HFEC inspection to determine the type of titanium alloy material negates the need for an XRF inspection (for example, see task 5). The commenter stated it cannot accomplish the XRF inspection because the equipment is unavailable. The FAA disagrees with the request. Tables 1 through 5 in the Accomplishment Instructions of the requirements bulletin specify to “Do a High Frequency Eddy-Current (HFEC) inspection or handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer inspection of the affected Stub Beam HPD Attach fitting(s) and Upper Splice fitting to determine titanium alloy material.” In addition, footnote 2 of the corresponding Method of Compliance task tables states: “As an option, do a High Frequency Eddy-Current (HFEC) inspection of the stub beam HPD attach fitting to determine the material in accordance with 787 NDT Manual Part 6, 51-00-13.” Footnote 2 denotes that the HFEC inspection is an alternative to the XRF inspection specified in footnote 1. Therefore, operators may accomplish either an HFEC or XFR inspection to comply with the AD requirement to determine the type of titanium alloy material. No change to the AD is necessary in this regard. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Revise the Number of Affected Airplanes</HD> Boeing requested that the FAA revise the estimated number of affected airplanes of U.S. registry from 11 to 13 in the Costs of Compliance paragraph of the proposed AD and adjust the costs accordingly. Boeing noted that Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB530091-00 RB, Issue 001, dated February 7, 2025, includes 13 airplanes of U.S. registry. Boeing explained that the two additional airplanes are currently operated by foreign operators but remain on the U.S. registry. The FAA agrees with the request. The FAA has revised the Costs of Compliance section of this AD accordingly. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Conclusion</HD> 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 Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin B787-81205-SB530091-00 RB, Issue 001, dated February 7, 2025. This material specifies procedures for an HFEC inspection or handheld XRF spectrometer inspection of the affected stub beam HPD attach fittings and upper splice fitting (if applicable to the group) to determine the titanium alloy material, and applicable related investigative and corrective actions. Related investigative actions include an open hole HFEC inspection for cracking of the fastener hole locations common to the interfacing structure of affected stub beam HPD attach fittings and affected upper splice fittings. Corrective actions include repairing cracks and obtaining instructions for installation of new fittings, replacing all affected stub beam HPD attach fittings with new stub beam HPD attach fittings made of Ti-6Al-4V alloy material, and replacing all affected upper splice fittings (if applicable to the group) with new upper splice fittings made of Ti-6Al-4V alloy material. 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 13 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,xs66,xs66"> <TTITLE>Estimated Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> Cost on U.S. operators </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Inspection</ENT> <ENT>Up to 12 work-hours × $85 per hour = $1,020</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>Up to $1,020</ENT> <ENT>Up to $13,260.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA estimates the following costs to do any replacements that would be required based on the results of the inspection. The agency has no way of determining the number of aircraft that might need these replacements: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,xs66,xs66"> <TTITLE>On-Condition Costs</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Action</CHED> <CHED H="1">Labor cost</CHED> <CHED H="1">Parts cost</CHED> <ENT I="01">Open hole HFEC inspection</ENT> <ENT>Up to 3 work-hours × $85 per hour = $255</ENT> <ENT>$0</ENT> <ENT>Up to $255.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Replacement</ENT> <ENT>52 work-hours × $85 per hour = $4,420</ENT> <ENT>Up to $17,570</ENT> <ENT>Up to $21,990.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for certain installation instructions or repairs speci ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━