U.S. Department 

of Transportation 

Federal Aviation 

Administration 

August 7, 2015 

Mr. Thomas A. Enyati 

Manager, Certification & Airworthiness 

The Boeing Company 

Boeing Commercial Airplanes 

Southern California Engineering Design Center 

2401 E. Wardlow Road, Mail Code D800-0022 

Long Beach, CA 90807-5309 

Dear Mr. Enyart: 

Transport Airplane Directorate 

1601 Lind Ave, SW. 

Renton , Washington 98057-3356 

Exemption No. 12409 

Regulatory Docket No. FAA-2015-1669 

This letter is to inform you that we have granted your request for exemption. It transmits our 

decision and explains its basis. 

The Basis for Our Decision 

By letter no. CP-L4L-15-00 122, dated May I, 2015, Mr. Thomas A. Enyart, on behalf of The 

Boeing Company, petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for exemption from 

the requirements ofTitle 14, Code ofFederal Regulations (14 CFR) 26.21(b)(2)(ii). The 

request seeks relief from the FAA-approved binding schedule, for Boeing Model DC-8 

airplanes, which identifies those maintenance actions for which service information has not 

been mandated by airworthiness directive as of January 14, 2011. 

The FAA has determined that good cause exists for not publishing a summary of the petition 

in the Federal Register because the requested exemption would not set a precedent, the FAA 

has not received public comments on other§ 26.21 (b)(2)(ii) exemption requests, and any 

delay in acting on this petition would be detrimental to Boeing. 

The FAA has issued grants of exemption in circumstances similar in all material respects to 

those presented in your petition. In granting of exemption no. II 026 (copy enclosed), the 

FAA found that an exemption is in the public interest for the reasons stated by the petitioner. 

and that the petitioner has shown that the exemption would not adversely affect safety. 
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Having reviewed your reasons for requesting an exemption, I find that-

• they don't differ materially from those presented by the petitioner in the enclosed grant 

of exemption; 

• the reasons stated by the FAA for granting the enclosed exemption also apply to the 

situation you present; and 

• a grant of exemption is in the public interest. 

Our Decision 

In consideration of the foregoing, I find that a grant of exemption is in the public interest. 

Therefore, pursuant to the authority contained in 49 U .S.C. 40113 and 44 701 delegated to me 

by the Administrator, The Boeing Company is hereby granted an exemption from 

14 CFR 26.2l(b)(2)(ii). 

The exemption is granted to the extent necessary to allow Boeing to remove those 

maintenance actions not yet in the form of Boeing service bulletins, indicated in Boeing 

Document MDC 12K900 1, and which address the wing lower skin for DC-8 airplanes, all of 

which have a binding schedule date of September 30, 2016. 

Sincerely. 

Michael Kaszycki 

Acting Manager, Transport Airplane Directorate 

Aircraft Certification Service 

Enclosure 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION 

RENTON, WASHINGTON 98057-3356 

In the matter of the petition of 

Exemption No. 11026 

The Boeing Company Regulatory Docket No. FAA-2013-1033 

for an exemption from § 26.21 (b )(2)(ii) of 

Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations 

GRANT OF EXEMPTION 

By letter no. RA-14-01655 , dated April 10, 2014, Douglas M. Lane, ODA Deputy Lead 

Administrator, The Boeing Company, P.O. Box 3707 MC 03-56, Seattle, WA, 98124-2207, 

petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for an exemption from the requirements of 

§ 26.21(b)(2)(ii) ofTitle 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR). This exemption, if granted, 

would allow Boeing to remove Boeing Service Bulletin 73 7 -52A 1038 from the FAA-approved 

binding schedule contained in Boeing Document 06-84905 for the subject service bulletin only. 

The petitioner requests relief from the following regulation(s): 

Section 26.2l(b)(2)(ii) at Amendment 26-6 - For those maintenance actions for which 

service information has not been issued as of the applicable compliance date specified in 

paragraph (c) of this section, a list identifying each of those actions and a binding 

schedule for providing in a timely manner the necessary service information for those 

actions. Once the FAA Oversight Office approves this schedule, each person identified in 

paragraph (c) of this section must comply with that schedule. 

The petitioner supports its request with the following information: 

This section quotes the relevant information from the petitioner's request, with minor edits for 

clarity. The complete petition is available at the Depatiment of Transportation's Federal Docket 

Management System, on the Internet at http://regulations.gov, in Docket No. FAA-2013-1033 . 
Why relief is necessary 

Within the Widespread Fatigue Damage final rule,§ 26.21(b)(2)(ii) requires a Type 

Certificate Holder (TCH) to submit a list identifying each of those maintenance actions 

for which service information has not been mandated by airworthiness directive as of 

January 14, 2011 and a binding schedule for providing in a timely manner the necessary 

service information for those actions. 

The Boeing 737CL WFD/LOV Compliance Document provides the list of those 

maintenance actions in the form of Boeing Service Bulletins as well as a binding date by 

which revisions ofthose Service Bulletins will be submitted to the FAA. Included in the 

listing of Service Bulletins to be revised is the Service Bulletin, which addresses the main 

deck cargo door hinge area on a number of737-200C airplanes and which has a binding 

schedule date of July 14,2014 for submittal of the revision to the FAA. 

After the binding schedule for submittal of the revised Service Bulletins in the Boeing 

737CL WFD/LOV Compliance Document was approved, further WFD analysis of the 

structure addressed in Boeing Service Bulletin 73 7-52 A I 03 8 revealed that the Inspection 

Start Point (ISP) would occur after the Limit of Validity (LOY) for these airplanes. At the 

LOY, any active airplanes would be withdrawn from service. ln light of this, there is no 

need for Boeing to revise the Service Bulletin. As a result, Boeing is respectfully 

petitioning that the revision of the Service Bulletin, as listed in the Boeing 737CL 

WFD/LOV Compliance Document, be exempted from the 14 CFR §26.21(b)(2)(ii) 

aspects of the applicability of the Widespread Fatigue Damage final rule. 

Description of the issue 

A revision to the Service Bulletin was required in response to the Widespread Fatigue 

Damage final rule and to meet the commitments of the binding schedule contained in the 

Boeing 737CL WFD/LOV Compliance Document. The revision to the Service Bulletin 

would provide instructions to inspect the outer skin of the main deck cargo door below 

the hinge line at an Inspection Start Point (ISP) and to install a modification/repair at or 

before the Structural Modification Point (SMP). 

The revision of the Service Bulletin would be addressing a total of33 737-200C 

airplanes. Ofthese 33 airplanes, 30 are permanently out of service or exceed their LOY. 

One airplane is embargoed and the remaining two that would need service action are not 

N-registered and it is anticipated that they will never fly into US airspace. One airplane, 

LIN 309, is located in the Republic of South Africa, has not flown since Apri I 2006 and is 

in long term storage. The other airplane, LIN 295, is located in the Cote D'Ivoire and 

hasn't shown any activity for at least the past 12 months. It is anticipated that these two 

airplanes will never be operated under Parts 121 or 129. 

After the conclusion was reached that the affected fleet consisted of only two potentially 

active airplanes and noting that a conservative analysis approach was used, the WFD 

analysis was re-calculated resulting in an Inspection Start Point (ISP) that exceeds the 

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LOY of 75,000 cycles for these airplanes. Therefore, no additional service actions are 

required to address WFD and there is no reason to revise the Service Bulletin by the 

binding schedule date of July 14, 2014. 

Statement of public interest 

Exclusion of the revision ofthe Service Bulletin from the requirements of 14 CFR 

§26.21 (b)(2)(ii) would permit The Boeing Company to apply more resources to the 

development of the widespread fatigue damage data for those remaining Service Bulletins 

to which the rule is applicable. The Boeing Company also considers that the granting of 

this exemption would negate the need for FAA to evaluate the data required to support 

compliance with these regulations for the revision of the Service Bulletin. Therefore, 

granting this exemption would, in turn, reduce the burden on FAA resources and 

consequently public expenditure. 

Statement of no adverse effect on safety 

The recalculated ISP for the maintenance actions for the revision of the Service Bulletin 

exceeds the LOY. In the unlikely event that either of the two airplanes in the affected fleet 

is ever returned to a flyable condition, they will have been removed from service at the 

LOY point prior to the ISP. 

Conclusion 

Exemption of the revision of the Service Bulletin from the requirements of 14 CFR 

§ 26.21 (b )(2)(ii) would have no adverse effect on public safety and would permit The 

Boeing Company to apply more resources to the development of the widespread fatigue 

damage data for those Service Bulletins to which the rule is applicable. 

Privileges of this exemption outside the United States 

Extension of this exemption is not required outside of the United States. 

Federal Register publication 

A summary of the petition was published in the Federal Register on May 22, 2014 [79 FR 

29479]. No comments were received. 

The FAA's analysis 

The FAA has considered the petitioner's request and finds that a grant of exemption is in the 

public interest for the reasons stated by the petitioner, and that the petitioner has shown that the 

exemption would not adversely affect safety. 

This petition for exemption is consistent with the stated safety goals of Final Rule Docket No. 

F AA-2006-24281. Specifically, the intent of the final rule was to invoke the development of a 

limit of validity of the engineering data that supports the structural maintenance program 

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(hereafter referred to as LOY) that will ensure that large, transport-category airplanes will not be 

operated beyond a time at which widespread fatigue damage (WFD) could occur. Section 26.21 

of this final rule specifies that, for an LOY to be acceptable, the supporting evaluation must 

demonstrate that the fatigue characteristics of, and any specified maintenance actions for, the 

airplane are sufficient to prevent WFD from occurring before the LOY. For any LOY that relies 

upon maintenance actions to prevent WFD before the LOY, design-approval holders must 

identify those actions and, unless the necessary service information already exists, develop the 

service information in accordance with a binding schedule approved by the FAA. Boeing's 

petition for exemption is limited to a request for removing Boeing Service Bulletin 737-52A I 038 

from the binding schedule, which is identified in Boeing Document D6-84905. 

Under § 26.21 , design-approval holders may propose to support an LOY that is farther out in 

time by using new maintenance actions for which service information has not yet been published. 

Binding schedules are intended to ensure that maintenance actions are available to enable the 

FAA to publish the necessary airworthiness directives (ADs) in time to allow operators to 

accomplish the actions during normal maintenance. To establish a binding schedule, design 

approval holders must evaluate WFD-susceptible structure to determine when maintenance 

actions should be started. The design-approval holder must base the evaluation on test evidence 

and analysis at a minimum and, if available, service experience, or service experience and 

teardown-inspection results, of high-time airplanes. The data would then be used to establish any 

structural modification points (SMP) and inspection start points (lSP) if inspections are shown to 

be effective. 

Boeing's WFD evaluation ofthe main-deck cargo-door hinge area on 737-200C airplanes 

initially revealed that the ISP is before the airplane's LOY. The binding schedule currently 

identified in Boeing Document 06-84905 reflects this determination. However, Boeing later 

re-evaluated the subject area and determined that the initial WFD evaluation used conservative 

assumptions. Because the re-evaluation showed the ISP to be greater than the LOY, maintenance 

actions to address WFD are no longer required for the main-deck cargo-door hinge area on 

737-200C airplanes. This is because§§ 121.1115 and 129.115 would require operators to retire 

affected airplanes before an inspection of the subject hinge area would be required. The FAA has 

reviewed Boeing's re-evaluation and determined that Boeing's conclusion is correct. 

Therefore, granting Boeing's request for removing Boeing Service Bulletin 737-52A1038 from 

the binding schedule, resulting in Boeing not having to update the service bulletin for WFD 

considerations, will not have an adverse effect on safety. 

The FAA's decision 

In consideration of the foregoing, I find that a grant of exemption is in the public interest. 

Therefore, pursuant to the authority contained in 49 U.S.C. 40113 and 44 701 delegated to me by 

the Administrator, The Boeing Company is hereby granted an exemption from 

14 CFR 26.21(b)(2)(ii). The exemption is granted to the extent necessary to allow Boeing to 

remove Boeing Service Bulletin 737-52A 1038 from the FAA-approved binding schedule 

contained in Boeing Document D6-84905. The granting of this exemption is for the subject 

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service bulletin only. All other service bulletins are required to be developed and issued by the 

dates identified in the binding schedule. 

Issued in Renton Washington, on July 11 ,2014. 

Is/ Michael Kaszycki 

Michael Kaszycki 

Acting Manager, Transport Airplane Directorate 

Aircraft Certification Service 

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