FAA Warns About Improperly Manufactured Leading Edge Slat Tracks for 737NG and 737MAX Aircraft

June 3, 2019 by Leave a comment

The FAA has issued a press release about 737 leading edge slat tracks may have been improperly manufactured and may not meet all applicable regulatory requirements for strength and durability.  According to the FAA, the issue affects both 737NG and 737MAX aircraft.

It is unknown whether any of these articles are in distributors’ inventories, or if all of them are still on-wing (although it is likely that they remain on-wing due to the age of the fleets).  Boeing claims that it has contacted all of the affected operators.

This issue appears to affect a significant number of aircraft.  Boeing claims that 21 of the 737NGs are likely affected but has nonetheless recommended inspecting a total of 133 of them.  The FAA press release indicates that the total number of 737MAX aircraft to be inspected is 179 (and Boeing claims that 20 of the aircraft are most likely to have the problematic slat tracks).

The FAA has pledged to issue an Airworthiness Directive (AD) to mandate Boeing’s service actions to identify and remove the discrepant parts from service.  We expect to see the AD, soon.  After the AD has been published, distributors are advised to examine the AD and ensure that they do not receive slat tracks from among the AD list.  The AD was still forthcoming as of this afternoon – ASA plans to publish follow-up information after the AD has been published.

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Fire Hazard: B/E Protective Breathing Equipment (PBE), P/N 119003-11

January 18, 2016 by Leave a comment

The FAA has revised a proposed Airworthiness Directive (AD) for the B/E Aerospace protective breathing equipment (PBE) part number 119003-11.

This AD is in the NPRM stage. This means that it is a proposal – not yet a regulation – but that the FAA intends to issue a final regulation related to this article. A previous NPRM required inspection of the units, but it appears that the FAA has decided that inspection is insufficient; the FAA has changed its remedy to inspection and replacement of units that fail inspection.

The FAA reports that there have been incidents of fires when the PBEs were activated.  Problems with these PBEs have been reported in the past, and B/E Aerospace issued Service Bulletin 119003-35-5 (April 19 2010) addressed certain PBE problems in this part number (but only for a limited range of serial numbers).  Note that the current proposed AD would affect all serial numbers.

The newly issued NPRM would supersede a 2011 final AD against a limited number of serial numbers of the same units. That AD required inspection of the units.  A June 2015 NPRM would have required inspection of all units (regardless of serial number) but the FAA has decided that the inspection instruction (alone) is inadequate.  This AD is being issued as a supplemental NPRM (in addition to the June 2015 NPRM) in order to permit comments due to the burden being changed; but it is very likely that this will go to final rule.  In 2011,the FAA received comments opposing the original AD and implemented it anyway, explaining that there was an safety danger.

If an operator has a faulty unit, then the FAA has directed that they replace it with either B/E Aerospace P/N 119003-21 or any other serviceable, FAA-approved, PBE.

Distributors should take two different messages from this NPRM:

  • First, if you have these units in stock, you should consider how best to safely disposition them.  Remember, PBEs are class five hazardous materials (oxidizers).  You should only be shipping them if you are properly trained under the regulations.
  • Second, operators who may have inspected the limited run of serial numbers in 2011 (pursuant to the original AD) and then retained them in service will need replacements when the AD becomes final.  In addition, operators who have units of all serial numbers may require replacements.  This could be a sales opportunity for some distributors!

 

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Unapproved Parts Notice (UPN) Issued Against Barrel Nuts, P/N NAS577B7A

November 14, 2014 by Leave a comment

The FAA has issued a new Unapproved Parts Notice (UPN) concerning Barrel Nuts, part number NAS577B7A produced by Alcoa Fastening Systems.  The UPN applies only to Batch Numbers 5334992-000, M004187-000 and 5323292-000.

The FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive in July to the owners and operators of Embraer EMB-500 aircraft; this was issued in response to a Brazilian airworthiness directive.  The Brazilian airworthiness directive was issued in order to promote the detection and correction of cracking in the barrel nuts.  Crackig had been detected at the horizontal stabilizer-to-vertical stabilizer attachment joint.

The emergency AD was not sent to distributors who might have had these parts in their inventories, so a follow-up AD was published in the Federal Register in August.  Because UPNs are typically aimed at products and not parts, an UPN was issued today to ensure that the remainder of the aviation community received notice about these parts.

The UPN advises companies to perform a close visual inspection for surface irregularities, such as gouges or cracks, before installing these nuts on an aircraft.  It advises the industry to quarantine suspect parts until conformity to the manufacturing standard can be verified.  The UPN notes that some non-conformities may not be visible during visual inspection, so companies should use their quality acceptance criteria to help identify parts that must be subject to additional scrutiny.

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767 AD Raises Air Carrier Concerns About Duplication of Effort

January 27, 2014 by Leave a comment

The FAA is superseding two earlier 767 Airworthiness Directives (ADs) and replacing them with a new terminating AD.

The earlier Airworthiness Directives were AD 2000–17–05 and AD 2001–04–09.  AD 2000–17–05 had required a functional check of the shear rivets in all six elevator power control actuator (PCA) bellcrank assemblies to determine the condition of the shear rivets.  AD 2001–04–09 had required repetitive testing of the elevator control system to determine if an elevator PCA is rigged incorrectly due to yielded or failed shear rivets in a bellcrank assembly for the elevator PCA.  Since those two were issued, a terminating modification has been designed. This new AD requires an inspection to determine the part numbers and condition of the bellcrank assemblies and modification or replacement of the PCA bellcrank assembly, if necessary.  The AD is generated because of failures or jams in the elevator system that occur when the elevator is fully deflected (hardover).

The new AD also requires certain repetitive checks, which the FAA estimates will cost about $3,000 per inspection cycle (estimate found in the Federal Register).  Federal Register cost estimates are notorious for their inaccuracy, and Fox Business News has estimated that the repetitive checks could cost $2 million per aircraft.

United objected to the AD during the Notice and Comment period.  They felt that the AD terminating work had already been accomplished by the industry (they’d received Alternative Method of Compliance [AMOC] approvals from the FAA ).  The FAA disagreed, explaining that the actual number of aircraft that complied through AMOCs was unknown.

Anyone with an interest in 767 aircraft or affected 767 parts should consider what opportunities this may pose for existing 767 parts inventories.

The new AD is effective March 3, 2014.

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