European Aviation Safety Agency

ATA 53 – Fuselage – Door Stop Fitting Holes At Frames 66/68 – Inspection / Repair
 N AD 2016-0238

Annotation

Reason:

During an A320 fatigue test campaign, it was determined that fatigue damage could appear at the door stop fitting holes of fuselage frame (FR) 66 and FR 68 on left hand (LH) and right hand (RH) sides.

This condition, if not detected and corrected, could affect the structural integrity of the airframe.

Two inspections, Airworthiness Limitations Item (ALI) tasks 534129 and 534130, were introduced in the Airworthiness Limitations Section (ALS) Part 2 with the April 2012 revision and with some compliance time changes with Revision 3 of ALS Part 2 dated October 2014.

Since these ALI tasks were implemented, a significant number of reports was received concerning non-critical damage and early crack findings. Prompted by these reports, Airbus published SB A320-53-1288 and SB A320-53-1290, providing inspection instructions to improve damage management and modification instructions.

Consequently, EASA issued AD 2016-0015, requiring repetitive rototest inspections of the affected door stop fitting holes and, depending on findings, repair of any cracked area(s).

Since that AD was issued, ALS Part 2 Revision 04 and later on Revision 05 were published, introducing updated thresholds and/or intervals for some tasks as specified in Airbus SB A320-53-1288, introducing new configuration of aeroplane with RETRO WING having accomplished SB A320-57-1193 (mod 160080), and keeping the threshold or interval only in flight cycles (FC).

For the reasons described above, this AD retains the requirements of EASA AD 2016-0015, which is superseded, but requires those actions within the updated thresholds and intervals. In addition, a corrected threshold for pre-mod 160021 A321 aeroplanes is introduced and the Applicability is reduced to exclude configurations that are not affected.