Summary
- Transport Canada (TC), as the state of design of the Airbus A220, has issued an emergency airworthiness directive.
- The directive mandated operators to check for missing or incorrectly installed pintle fuse pins in an aircraft’s main landing gear (MLG).
- The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has also adopted the directive.
Transport Canada (TC), the regulatory authority of the Canadian aviation industry, has issued an emergency airworthiness directive (EAD) for the Airbus A220-100 and A220-300, mandating checks for missing main landing gear (MLG) pins.
Discovered during maintenance
According to TC, during scheduled maintenance, a technician discovered that one of the pintle fuse pins in the left-hand (LH) MLG was missing.
“A missing or damaged Pintle Fuse Pin would lead to a significant redistribution of loads in the MLG assembly and reduce the capability of the MLG assembly to withstand those loads, potentially resulting in the collapse of the MLG during takeoff.”
Photo: Airbus
As a result, the Canadian regulator mandated a detailed visual inspection (DVI) of the MLG assembly to ensure that the pintle fuse pin was correctly installed and was present in the MLG.
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Within 24 flight cycles
TC stated that operators and/or maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organizations have to refer to Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (ACLP) Aler Operators Transmission (AOT) A220-AOT-57-21-001 Rev. x, which was published on July 31, 2024.
The Canadian authority’s emergency AD was published on August 1. The aforementioned AOT could be revised and adopted following the approval of the chief of continuing airworthiness of TC.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) adopted the EAD on August 2. Both TC and EASA set the effective date of the directive as August 3.
Photo: Airbus
TC detailed that operators have to conduct a detailed visual inspection (DVI) of the MLG pintle housing assembly to verify that the pintle fuse pins are present and installed correctly in accordance with the instructions in the AOT.
“If any Pintle Fuse Pins are found to be incorrectly installed or missing, before further flight, contact ACLP for an approved disposition in accordance with Section 4.2.3 of the ACLP AOT and incorporate that disposition before further flight.”
The DVIs have to be done within 24 flight cycles (FC), or 24 departures and landings of an A220-100 and A220-300.
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Affecting A220-100 and A220-300
TC outlined that the EAD affected BD-500-1A10 and BD-500-1A11, the official type names of the A220-100 and A220-300 aircraft.
Airlines operating A220-100 with the manufacturer serial number (MSN) 50001 through 50065 and 50067 through 50076 have to conduct the DVIs of the MLG’s pintle housing assembly.
Ch-aviation data showed that A220-100s with MSNs between 50001 and 5009 have been either retired, scrapped, stored, or used as testbeds, while A220-100s with serial numbers from 50010 to 50018 were operated by Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS), totaling nine aircraft.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace I Simple Flying
Delta Air Lines operated the following 45 MSNs, excluding MSN 50019, which was not assigned to any airframe, while Airbus delivered MSNs 50068, 50070, 50072, 50073, 50074, 50075, and 50076 to ITA Airways.
Meanwhile, the directive also affected A220-300 aircraft with MSNs between 55001 and 55284, and 55286 and 55289. Ch-aviation indicated that the first active A220-300 with an MSN that falls in that range is an airBaltic A220-300, registered as YL-CSA, which was delivered in November 2016.
Breeze Airways operated MSN 55284, registered as N236BZ, while MSN 55285 was another A220-300. However, Airbus has yet to deliver the latter aircraft.
MSN 55286, 55288, and 55289 are operated by airBaltic, Cobham Aviation Services Australia, and JetBlue, respectively, with the Australian operator still awaiting the delivery of the A220-300. MSN 55287 has no assigned airframe in ch-aviation’s records.
As such, the TC EAD affected 235 A220-300 aircraft, two of which were currently or previously operated by Airbus Canada as testbeds.
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