Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 39</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0612; Project Identifier MCAI-2023-00935-R; Amendment 39-23214; AD 2025-25-06]</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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Helicopters Model SA341G and SA342J helicopters. This AD was prompted by reports of disbonding of the stainless steel leading edge protection of certain part-numbered main rotor blades (MRB). This AD requires repetitively tap inspecting the MRB and, depending on the results, repairing or replacing the MRB. This AD also prohibits installing those MRB 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 February 6, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approved the incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this AD as of February 6, 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-2025-0612; 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 this 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-2025-0612. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Zain Jamal, Aviation Safety Engineer, FAA, 1600 Stewart Avenue, Suite 410, Westbury, NY 11590; phone: (847) 294-7264; email: <E T="03">zain.jamal@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 Model SA341G and SA342J helicopters. The NPRM was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 7, 2025 (90 FR 14922). The NPRM was prompted by AD 2023-0155, dated July 31, 2023 (EASA AD 2023-0155) (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 that reports were received of the stainless steel leading edge protection disbonding on certain part-numbered MRBs. This condition, if not detected and addressed, could result in significant unbalance of the main rotor, a high level of vibration, failure of the main rotor and main gearbox, and consequent loss of control of the helicopter. In the NPRM, the FAA proposed to require repetitively tap inspecting the MRB and, depending on the results, repairing or replacing the MRB. In the NPRM, the FAA also proposed to prohibit installing those MRB 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-2025-0612. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Final Airworthiness Directive</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments</HD> The FAA received comments from an anonymous commenter who requested the FAA take into consideration the community, operator, and environmental impact when issuing an AD. The commenter made several other comments not specific to this AD, such as systemic and social-justice recommendations, which were out of scope of this AD. The following presents the comments received on the NPRM and the FAA's response to the comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Relief on Inspection Frequency and Cost Burden</HD> The commenter requested the FAA consider using a tiered or risk-based inspection interval for low-utilization or community-serving operators. The commenter also requested that the FAA provide guidance for financial assistance to those disproportionally affected by ADs. The commenter stated that MRB inspections and MRB repair or replacement impose substantial labor and financial costs, especially on small operators and public sector agencies. The commenter requested the FAA consider cost offsets or grants for public-benefit entities. The FAA disagrees with the commenter. The NPRM requires a tap inspection, which takes an hour to complete. The FAA is issuing this AD to address an unsafe condition on the Airbus Helicopters Model SA341G and SA342J helicopters. Changing the inspection interval for low-utilization operators or public sector agencies does not address this unsafe condition because the FAA would be allowing higher risk to the flying public by allowing low-utilization operators or public sector agencies to have different inspection intervals that could allow the unsafe condition to remain on the helicopter for an unacceptable amount of time. The NPRM originally included the cost to replace these blades at $168,449 per blade. However, FAA revised the estimated cost of this final rule to reflect the repair cost, since it was determined that most operators have elected to repair their blades instead of replacing them with new blades. The repair cost is significantly less burdensome than the replacement cost and would not impose substantial labor and financial costs on small operators and public sector agencies. Additionally, the FAA is unable to offer guidance on financial assistance for those impacted by this AD because that is outside the scope of an FAA AD response. No changes were made to this AD as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Worker Protection and Training</HD> The commenter requested that all inspections and repairs be done by a unionized or properly certified mechanic. The commenter stated the FAA should require transparency in labor practices and support ongoing worker safety training. The FAA acknowledges the commenter's concern. FAA regulations stipulate who can perform AD related inspections and repairs on U.S.-registered aircraft. No changes were made to this AD as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Compliance Flexibility for Critical Services</HD> The commenter requested that critical service operators ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> air ambulances, disaster relief) should have temporary compliance waivers or rapid repair authorizations when public safety is at stake, with oversight to prevent abuse. The FAA acknowledges the commenter's concern. An operator can request an alternative method of compliance (AMOC) for relief by using the process in paragraph (j) of this AD. No changes were made to this AD as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Safety Reporting, Transparency, and Public Access</HD> The commenter requested that the FAA require reporting and public disclosure of inspection findings, repairs, and failures, broken down by operator type and geography, to foster accountability and help communities advocate for safer air transport. The FAA partially agrees. For Part 121 operators, reports of certain failure, malfunction, or defect can be submitted and searched on the service difficulty reporting (SDR) system site. The FAA-EASA Technical Implementation Procedures (TIP) define the ongoing obligations of both authorities to share relevant airworthiness and safety-related information. Under the TIP, the FAA and EASA have developed procedures to exchange data on airworthiness standards, certification systems, and emerging safety concerns; identify and evaluate safety issues early; and agree on actions to address those concerns in order to maintain continued confidence in each other's systems. Findings from surveillance and audits are shared, and both parties commit to timely communication of safety and airworthiness information. The commenter's request to require reporting and disclose inspection findings, repairs, and failures to the public goes beyond the FAA-EASA TIP agreement and the scope of this AD. No changes were made to this AD as a result of this comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Environmental and Community Impact Assessment</HD> The commenter requested that the FAA assess the environmental impact of increased MRB replacements, especially regarding disposal of hazardous composites and metals. The commenter stated that the FAA should require operators to recycle or safely dispose of MRBs, and encourage development of greener rotor blade materials and repair techniques. The FAA acknowledges the commenter's concern. However, the FAA advises that this AD allows for operators to either repair or replace the MRB as a corrective action. As stated above, most operators have elected to repair the MRB. Additionally, in accordance with 14 CFR 39.5, the FAA issues an AD when an unsafe condition exists on an aircraft and the condition is likely to ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━