Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-5387; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00399-R]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters</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) 2023-01-04, which applies to all Airbus Helicopters Model AS350B, AS350BA, AS350B1, AS350B2, AS350B3, AS350D, AS355E, AS355F, AS355F1, AS355F2, AS355N, and AS355NP helicopters. AD 2023-01-04 requires, for helicopters with certain part-numbered tail rotor head (TRH) spider pitch change units installed, inspecting the spider pitch change nut (nut) for correct installation; marking a 2 to 5 mm wide black paint index mark and repetitively inspecting the alignment of the marking; and performing additional inspections and corrective actions if necessary. Since the FAA issued AD 2023-01-04, new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations were issued, which terminated the requirement for the repetitive inspections of the black paint index marking. This proposed AD would require the same actions of AD 2023-01-04, except for the repetitive black paint index marking inspection and would prohibit installing certain parts unless certain requirements are met. 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 NPRM by February 2, 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-2025-5387; 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 Airbus Helicopters material identified in this proposed AD, contact Airbus Helicopters, 2701 North Forum Drive, Grand Prairie, TX 75052; phone: (972) 641-0000 or (800) 232-0323; fax: (972) 641-3775; website: <E T="03">airbus.com/en/products-services/helicopters/hcare-services/airbusworld.</E> It is also available at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-5387. • 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Matthew Williams, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (316) 946-4134; email: <E T="03">matthew.t.williams@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 to an address listed under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . Include “Docket No. FAA-2025-5387; Project Identifier MCAI-2024-00399-R” 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 the 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 Matthew Williams, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590. 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 2023-01-04, Amendment 39-22298 (88 FR 6618, February 1, 2023) (AD 2023-01-04), for Airbus Helicopters Model AS350B, AS350BA, AS350B1, AS350B2, AS350B3, AS350D, AS355E, AS355F, AS355F1, AS355F2, AS355N, and AS355NP helicopters. AD 2023-01-04 was prompted by an MCAI originated by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the Technical Agent for the Member States of the European Union. EASA issued AD 2021-0282, dated December 17, 2021 (EASA AD 2021-0282), to address loss of the TRH pitch change control. AD 2023-01-04 requires, for helicopters with certain part-numbered TRH pitch change units installed, inspecting for correct installation of the nut; marking a 2 to 5 mm wide black paint index mark to identify the position of certain parts; and after the initial marking, repetitively inspecting the alignment of the marking; and additional inspections and corrective actions if necessary. Additionally, AD 2023-01-04 prohibits installing an affected part on a helicopter unless certain requirements are met. The FAA issued AD 2023-01-04 to detect improper installation of the nut and improper alignment of a black index marking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Actions Since AD 2023-01-04 Was Issued</HD> Since the FAA issued AD 2023-01-04, EASA superseded AD 2021-0282 and issued EASA AD 2021-0282R1, Revision 1, dated July 10, 2024 (EASA AD 2021-0282R1) (also referred to as the MCAI), to address an unsafe condition on all Airbus Helicopters Model AS 350 B, AS 350 BA, AS 350 BB, AS 350 B1, AS 350 B2, AS 350 B3, AS 350 D, AS 355 E, AS 355 F, AS 355 F1, AS 355 F2, AS 355 N, and AS 355 NP helicopters. The MCAI states the manufacturer revised the Airworthiness Limitations Section (ALS), as applicable, which now includes the repetitive black index marking checks (inspections). Additionally, for this NPRM, the FAA is updating the name of the TRH spider pitch change unit to TRH pitch change unit as defined in the required material. The FAA is issuing this proposed AD to detect improper installation of the nut and improper alignment of a black index marking. The unsafe condition, if not addressed, could result in loss of the TRH pitch change control and consequent loss of control of the helicopter. You may examine the MCAI in the AD docket at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> under Docket No. FAA-2025-5387. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Relationship Between This Proposed AD and Other Relevant Rulemaking</HD> EASA AD 2021-0282R1 specifies that the manufacturer revised the ALS, for Airbus Helicopters Model AS350 and AS355 helicopters as applicable. The revised ALS for each model now incorporates the periodic black index marking inspections. The FAA is evaluating this issue and may take further rulemaking action to accommodate these ALS amendments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Material Incorporated by Reference Under 1 CFR Part 51</HD> The FAA reviewed Airbus Helicopters Alert Service Bulletin (ASB) No. AS350-05.01.03, and Airbus Helicopters ASB No. AS355-05.00.86, both Revision 0 and dated July 8, 2024, which include Figure 1 that identifies the position of the TRH pitch change unit and of the bearing spacer to be marked with a 2 to 5 mm wide black paint index mark. This material also specifies procedures for inspecting the condition and installation of the nut; and inspecting the application and alignment of the black index mark on the TRH pitch change unit and the bearing spacer. 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">FAA's Determination</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, it has notified the FAA of the unsafe condition described in the MCAI and material referenced above. The FAA is issuing this NPRM after determining that the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or deve ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━