Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0754; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00489-T; Amendment 39-23185; AD 2025-23-02]</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) 2017-23-04, which applied to all Airbus SAS Model A300 B4-600R series airplanes; all Model A300-B4 603, B4-620, and B4-622 airplanes; all Model A300 C4-605R Variant F airplanes; and certain Model A300 F4-605R airplanes. AD 2017-23-04 required an inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints, and modification of the stringer joint couplings if necessary. Since the FAA issued AD 2017-23-04, it has been determined that additional airplanes may be subject to the identified unsafe condition. This AD continues to require the actions in AD 2017-23-04 and adds airplanes. This AD also removes certain airplanes from the applicability. 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-2025-0754; 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-2025-0754. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Aaron Nguyen, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 2200 South 216th St., Des Moines, WA 98198; phone: 817-222-5134; email: <E T="03">Aaron.T.Nguyen@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 2017-23-04, Amendment 39-19098 (82 FR 52832, November 15, 2017) (AD 2017-23-04). AD 2017-23-04 applied to all Airbus SAS Model A300 B4-600R series airplanes; all Model A300 B4-603, B4-620, and B4-622 airplanes; all Model A300 C4-605R Variant F airplanes; and certain Model A300 F4-605R airplanes. AD 2017-23-04 required an inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints, and modification of the stringer joint couplings if necessary. The FAA issued AD 2017-23-04 to detect and correct damage (including cracking) at the stringer joints, which could reduce the structural integrity of the wing. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 13, 2025 (90 FR 20261). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2024-0170, dated August 26, 2024, issued by EASA, which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union (EASA AD 2024-0170) (also referred to as the MCAI). The MCAI states that EASA AD 2024-0170 was issued to expand the applicability to include Model A300 F4-605R airplanes in post-modification 12699 configuration ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> airplanes embodied with Airbus modification 12699) and A300 F4-622R airplanes, even though the introduced models are below the lower threshold of the embodiment window (for modification of the stringer joint couplings), ensuring that their structures remain resistant against widespread fatigue damage within their established limit of validity. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require the actions in AD 2017-23-04 and add airplanes. In the NPRM, the FAA also proposed to remove certain airplanes from the applicability. 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-2025-0754. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from FedEx who supported the NPRM and had an additional request. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request To Allow Previously Approved Alternative Methods of Compliance (AMOCs)</HD> FedEx requested the FAA revise paragraph (i) of the proposed AD to allow AMOCs approved previously for AD 2017-23-04 to be approved as AMOCs for the corresponding provisions of the proposed AD to prevent the need to request new AMOC approvals after the AD is released. The FAA agrees and has revised this AD accordingly. <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 2024-0170, which specifies procedures for a detailed visual inspection of the upper wing skin and top stringer joints at rib 18 for damage (including cracking), modification of the stringer joint couplings at rib 18, and corrective actions if necessary. The modification includes oversizing fastener holes in the upper wing skin and doing a special detailed (roto-probe) inspection for damage, including cracking, of the fastener holes. Corrective actions include obtaining and following repair instructions. 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 119 airplanes of U.S. registry. The FAA estimates the following costs to comply with this AD: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,12,12,12"> <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 </CHED> <CHED H="1">Cost on U.S. operators</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Retained actions from AD 2017-23-04</ENT> <ENT>38 work-hours × $85 per hour = $3,230</ENT> <ENT>$9,540</ENT> <ENT>$12,770</ENT> <ENT>$1,519,630</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The FAA has received no definitive data on which to base the cost estimates for the on-condition actions specified in this AD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for this Rulemaking</HD> Title 49 of the United States Code specifies the FAA's authority to issue rules on aviation safety. Subtitle I, section 106, describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII: Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the Agency's authority. The FAA is issuing this rulemaking under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart III, Section 44701: General requirements. Under that section, Congress charges the FAA with promoting safe flight of civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing regulations for practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce. This regulation is within the scope of that authority because it addresses an unsafe condition that is likely to exist or develop on products identified in this rulemaking action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Findings</HD> This AD will not have federalism implications under Executive Order 13132. This AD will not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. For the reasons discussed above, I certify that this AD: (1) Is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, (2) Will not affect intrastate aviation in Alaska, and (3) Will not have a significant economic impact, positive or negative, on a substantial number of small entities under the criteria of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 14 CFR Part 39</HD> Air transportation, Aircraft, Aviation safety, Incorporation by reference, Safety. </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Amendment</HD> Accordingly, under the authority delegated to me by the Administrator, the FAA amends 14 CFR part 39 as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 39—AIRWORT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━