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Proposed AD for PA-28 wing spars

That was not intended as a political comment, just a note that the FAA was back to work.

NTSB’s response to FAA’s proposed AD
[ dead link ]

Switzerland

Above is a closed site @By9468840 – the URL doesn’t work. Can you post the actual PDF? You can drop a PDF straight into the text box.

US AOPA article

Proposed AD

I’ve googled for that NTSB doc and it is nowhere to be found.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Really interesting. Basically they are saying that the PA28-235 with the extra outboard tanks/ bigger engine, the Cherokee 6’s and the Arrows (all with higher wing spar loadings) should be tested first so see if there is a wider problem. They are in agreement with Piper.

Also they cleared up the amount of landings the Flight School had done (4 per hour), but significantly they found no evidence of manufacturing defects/ abuse/ dodgy maintenance. That is slightly worrying as it would have been nice if they had actually found an explanation.

Last Edited by Archer-181 at 16 Feb 12:19
United Kingdom

I suspect that fleet wide the PA-32, PA28R & PA28-235 get an easyer time of it than the smaller aircraft as there is a much greater part of this fleet in private ownership.

If I was looking for abused airframes the PA28-161 & 181 along with the PA28-140/150/180 would be my focus of attention, with a high number of ( unskilful ) student landings and the other sort of abuse that training aircraft get I would guess that even at the lighter weights flown ( unless you are from Manchester ) the aircraft are the more likely suspects for fatigue cracks.

One problem the FAA have is with such diverse fleet usage there will always difficulty with statistical analysis.

and finally here is the link to the official comment from EASA to the proposed wing spar AD
Our beloved EASA seems to make more sense than FAA.

https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FAA-2018-1046-0149

PDF

Last Edited by By9468840 at 17 Feb 10:36
Switzerland

Hmm, so inspection of a bolt is considered a cause of fatigue cracks?

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Le Saving

I think they are pointing that poor engineering practices when removing or replacing the bolts could damage the hole, that might promote a fatigue crack.

the inspection work is too invasive to ignore the risk of introducing errors during removal and installation of bolts. There are tons more maintenence induced errors thats caused accidents in history than those caused by failed components. My 1969 Arrow 200 has 2800 hours since new and about 1.5 landings per hour of service. It was never used as a trainer. There is no way I would let anyone remove my spar bolts just to see what is under it unless I have a real good reason to do it like after a hard landing.

Switzerland
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