AD NUMBER: 2020-01-18

PRODUCT: Boeing Model 757 airplanes.

ACTION: Final rule

SUMMARY: The FAA is superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2006-11-11, which applied to all The Boeing Company Model 757 airplanes.

AD 2006-11-11 required incorporating a new revision to the Airworthiness Limitations section of the Instructions for Continued Airworthiness to mandate certain repetitive inspections for fatigue cracking of principal structural elements (PSEs).

This AD retains those actions and requires revising the existing maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, to incorporate additional new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations.

This AD was prompted by a determination that new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations are necessary.

DATES: This AD is effective March 5, 2020.

COST: The FAA estimates that this AD affects 561 airplanes of U.S. registry. Operators may incur the following costs in order to comply with this AD:

The retained and new actions specified in this AD have the same cost for revising the existing maintenance or inspection program.

The FAA has determined that revising the existing maintenance or inspection program takes an average of 90 work-hours per operator, although the agency recognizes that this number may vary from operator to operator.

In the past, the FAA has estimated that this action takes 1 work-hour per airplane. Since operators incorporate maintenance or inspection program changes for their affected fleet(s), the FAA has determined that a per-operator estimate is more accurate than a per-airplane estimate.

Therefore, the FAA estimates the total cost per operator to be $7,650 (90 work-hours x $85 per work-hour).

FMI: AD