Airworthiness Directives; Fairchild Aircraft SA226 and SA227 Series Airplanes

Résumé

This amendment adopts a new airworthiness directive (AD) that applies to Fairchild Aircraft SA226 and SA227 series airplanes equipped with certain main landing gear (MLG) and nose landing gear (NLG). This action requires repetitively inspecting, using ultrasonic methods, the left-hand and right-hand MLG yokes and the NLG yokes for stress corrosion cracking, and, if any cracked yokes are found that exceed certain limits, either replacing the cracked yoke, the yoke/cylinder combination, or the affected MLG or NLG assembly. Several reports of landing gear failures on the affected airplanes that have the affected MLG or NLG yokes installed prompted this action. The actions specified by this AD are intended to prevent MLG or NLG failure caused by stress corrosion cracks in the yokes, which, if not detected and corrected, could result in loss of control of the airplane during landing operations.