FAA Expands Safety Checks and Bans Repairs on Airbus A320 Wings
Published Date: 7/10/2025
Rule
Summary
The FAA is updating safety rules for certain Airbus A319, A320, and A321 airplanes to keep wings strong and safe. They’re adding more planes to the list, changing when inspections must happen, and banning some repair methods that don’t work well. If you own or operate these planes, expect new deadlines and rules to keep flying safe without breaking the bank.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 0 benefits, 2 costs, 2 mixed.
Mandatory wing inspections continue
If you own or operate the listed Airbus A319, A320, and A321 airplanes, you must continue doing repetitive inspections for cracking at the wing manhole access panel attachment holes on certain wing skin panels and perform corrective action when needed, per Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2021-25-14 now being superseded. The listed models include A319-111 through -133 variants, A320-211 through -233 variants, and A321-111 through -232 variants.
Applicability adds and removes models
The AD changes which airplane models are covered by adding some airplanes and removing others from the list of affected Airbus A319/A320/A321 models. Owners/operators of models added to the AD become newly subject to the inspection and repair requirements, while owners/operators of models removed are no longer covered by this AD.
Compliance deadlines are updated
The AD updates the compliance times for the required inspections and any corrective actions. Owners/operators must follow the new compliance schedule established by this AD for the covered airplanes.
Some SRM repair methods banned
This AD prohibits the use of certain structural repair manual (SRM) tasks to accomplish repairs for the unsafe condition. Maintenance providers and operators may no longer use those specified SRM tasks and must use approved alternative repairs.
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