14 CFR Part 129 - OPERATIONS: FOREIGN AIR CARRIERS AND FOREIGN OPERATORS OF U.S.-REGISTERED AIRCRAFT ENGAGED IN COMMON CARRIAGE

The FAA is amending certain airworthiness regulations for transport category airplanes to require fuel tank designs that prevent a fuel tank explosion caused by the propagation of flames, from external fires, through the fuel tank vents. This final rule requires a delay of two minutes and thirty seconds between exposure of external fuel tank vents to ignition sources and explosions caused by propagation of flames into the fuel tank, thus increasing the time available for passenger evacuation and emergency response. These amendments apply to applications for new type certificates and certain applications for amended or supplemental type certificates. The amendments also require certain airplanes produced in the future and operated by air carriers to meet the new standards.

This action would amend certain airworthiness regulations for transport category airplanes to require fuel tank designs that prevent a fuel tank explosion caused by flame propagation through the fuel tank vents from external fires. This action would add a new requirement for fuel tank vent fire protection and would increase the time available for passenger evacuation and emergency response. This proposed amendment would apply to applications for new type certificates and certain applications for amended or supplemental type certificates. It would also require certain airplanes produced in the future and operated by air carriers to meet the new standards.

This statement describes a policy change to the FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) program. The FAA wants to ensure that countries do not remain on this listing when the results of the FAA's IASA determinations as to those countries might no longer be accurate or reasonably current. The FAA is accordingly adopting a procedure to remove a country from the IASA program summary listing when that country's air carriers no longer provide air service to the United States, none of the country's air carriers participates in code-share arrangements with U.S. air carriers, and the country's civil aviation authority (CAA) has ceased interacting with the FAA for an extended period of time. The FAA is making this change to improve the quality of the IASA summary listing. This statement also explains IASA Categories 1 and 2 in terms of what the flying public may reasonably take them to mean. This document modifies the IASA policies previously announced by the FAA.

The FAA is correcting a technical amendment published May 24, 2012 to a final rule published November 15, 2010. The final rule required design approval holders of certain existing airplanes and all applicants for type certificates of future transport category airplanes to establish a limit of validity of the engineering data that supports the structural maintenance program (hereinafter referred to as LOV). It also required that operators of any affected airplane incorporate the LOV into the maintenance program for that airplane. The technical amendment to the final rule was issued to correct errors, but within its publication, it contained inadvertent errors due to pagination in two tables. This document corrects the errors in those tables.

On December 15, 2011, the FAA published a Federal Register Notice (76 FR 77939) requesting comments on the FAA's plans for providing PBN services, and particularly the transition from the current Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Ranges (VOR) and other legacy navigation aids (NAVAIDS) to Area Navigation (RNAV)-based airspace and procedures. This action responds to the public comments the FAA received.

This document notifies the public of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) approval of the information collection requirement contained in the FAA's final rule, “Operations Specifications,” which was published on February 10, 2011.

The FAA is correcting a final rule published on November 15, 2010. That rule required design approval holders of certain existing airplanes and all applicants for type certificates of future transport category airplanes to establish a limit of validity of the engineering data that supports the structural maintenance program (hereinafter referred to as LOV). It also required that operators of any affected airplane incorporate the LOV into the maintenance program for that airplane. This document corrects errors in codified text of that document.