February 9, 2015 

U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket Operations, M–30,

West Building Ground Floor, Room W12–140

1200 New Jersey Avenue SE.

Washington, DC 20590

Docket No. FAA–2012–1132; Petition to Amend Time-Limited Partial Grant of Exemption No.10767; 

 14 CFR 25.901(c) and 25.981(a)(3)

To whom it may concern:

The subject petition for petition for exemption requests an amendment to Time-Limited Partial Grant of 

Exemption No. 10767 that would extend it from the current 36 month time limit to the end of 2019. The 

existing time-limited partial grant of exemption requires the fuel quantity indication systems (FQIS) on 

all newly-produced airplanes be shown to comply with 14 CFR 25.901(c), Amendment 25-46, and

25.981(a)(3), Amendment 25-102, or later amendments, after expiration of the 36 month exemption 

granted by the FAA on May 17, 2013. The petitioner says the extension would exempt all remaining 

production of Model 767-300 and -300F airplanes from compliance with 14 CFR 25.901(c) and 

25.981(a)(3). 

NATCA does not believe the petition meets the requirements for granting an exemption in 14 CFR 

section 11.81(e) and is not in the Public interest. Section 11.81(e) requires the petition for exemption 

include “The reasons why granting the exemption would not adversely affect safety, or how the 

exemption would provide a level of safety at least equal to that provided by the rule from which you seek 

the exemption”. NATCA agrees with the FAA's own analysis published the original exemption No. 

10767, which states "granting a permanent exemption would not provide a level of safety at least equal to 

that provided by the rule from which Boeing seeks the exemption (see 14 CFR 11.81) because areas 

affected by this change would not be compliant, as required by § 21.101." 

The petitioner’s justification for granting an amendment to the original exemption is based primarily on 

the cost of developing a compliant design and a statement of no adverse effect on safety because of 

features required by separate regulations. The costs associated with compliance are not a consideration 

for meeting the conditions in §11.81(e) for granting an exemption. The statement in the petition for 

amendment of the exemption of no impact on public safety is not supported by safety standards 

established by the FAA in rulemaking. Following the TWA 800 accident resulting from a fuel tank 

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explosion, the FAA amended §25.981 to include requirements that address precluding creation of ignition 

sources as well as separate requirements to limit fuel tank flammability. All manufactures are required to 

incorporate flammability reduction systems into production airplanes, including the 767, by the FAA's 

2008 Fuel Tank Flammability Reduction rulemaking. In addition, the FAA determined lack of separation 

between wiring that enters the fuel tanks and wiring carrying high power could result in ignition sources 

inside the fuel tanks. As stated by the petitioner full compliance with § 25.901(c), which is in the original 

certification basis of the 767, and §25.981(a)(3) at Amendment 25-102 or later would result in separation 

of the power supply in the FQPU, wire separation inside and outside of all 3 fuel tanks. The petitioner’s

proposal to only separate wiring for a portion of the wiring of outside of one fuel tank, the center wing 

fuel tank, is a significant reduction in the safety level provided by full separation for the wiring of all fuel 

tanks. 

NATCA does not believe that granting the amendment to allow only partial wire separation for one of the 

three fuel tanks (the center wing fuel tank) is an overall safety improvement relative to a compliant design 

that would be required to have wire separation for all fuel tanks together with separation of circuits in the 

FQIS processor. The petition states incorporating a fully compliant design into 767 production would take 

longer than the center tank wire separation they are now proposing. They state earlier production 

incorporation of only center tank wire separation provides improved safety. However the dates provided 

in the petition indicate the date for implementing the production incorporation of center tank wire 

separation is only several months earlier than the required date for full compliance in the original 

exemption. At current published production rates this amounts to 1 or 2 airplanes with center tank wire 

separation before all production airplanes are required by the time-limited partial grant of exemption to be 

compliant. This does not provide any safety benefit over requiring a fully compliant design in the 37 

additional airplanes the petitioner has stated will be produced through the end of 2019. This argument 

should not be a consideration in the FAA analysis of the exemption request. 

The original petition also states that it would take 3 years to develop a complaint design. Based on that 

information the FAA granted the original exemption allowing continued production of 767 airplanes with 

a design that is non-compliant with §25.981, and more importantly has been identified by the FAA as 

unsafe, for 3 years. We note that 14 CFR part 21 allows only 5 years after submittal of an application to 

the FAA to develop a completely new transport airplane design. Therefore, 3 years seems more than 

adequate time to develop and implement a compliant FQIS design. 

The petitioner has continued to produce airplanes with a known unsafe condition under the time-limited

partial grant of exemption since 2013. As a condition of that original exemption the petitioner was 

required to provide a complaint design within 3 years. In addition, the FAA analysis in the original 

exemption stated the petitioner agreed to provide service instructions in a timely manner for in-service 

airplanes, including those that would be produced during the 3 years of the original grant, needed to 

address unsafe conditions. As stated in the docket file, the 767 FQIS was found to be unsafe and the FAA 

requested service instructions by letter in 2009 and 2011. The petitioner's additional information letter 

(FAA-2012-1132-0009) shows the petitioner has not provided the service instructions as required as a 

condition of holding an Organization Delegation Authority defined in §§ 183.69(d), and the requirements 

of being a type certificate holder to provide service instructions to address unsafe conditions in §21.99. 

The petitioner is now requesting an extension until 2019. If granted, this will result in a total of 6 years of 

production of non-compliant FQIS that lacks separation between high power sources and wiring that 
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enters all 3 fuel tanks. NATCA requests the FAA include documentation in the docket of any 

enforcement action the FAA is taking against the petitioner for non-compliance for 5 years in providing 

service instructions to address unsafe conditions as required by §§ 183.69 and 21.99. 

Ex Parte Concern

The petition requesting amendment to the exemption indicates agreements have been made between the 

FAA and the petitioner regarding how the SFAR 88 FQIS unsafe conditions will be addressed on the 767. 

Review of the docket file for this exemption shows no record of communication between the petitioner 

and the FAA regarding such agreement. 

Separate rulemaking to address the FQIS unsafe condition for the Model 757 was proposed by the FAA in 

a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for an Airworthiness Directive (AD) in the Federal Register 

on March 1, 2012 (77 FR 12506, Docket FAA–2012–0187). That NPRM stated the FAA planed similar 

actions for those Boeing and Airbus airplanes with similar FQIS vulnerabilities that are not affected by 

the FTFR rule. NATCA provided comments to the NPRM docket and as of today there has not been any 

disposition of comments included in the docket or a final rule AD published. Therefore, the agreement 

referred to by the petitioner for amendment to the subject exemption appears to be an ex parte agreement 

between the FAA and the petitioner. The petitioner stated the agreement was to not provide wire 

separation for main tanks and only provide partial wire separation for the center tanks of 767 in cargo 

operation that do not have flammability reduction means, and no wire separation for the center tank or 

main tanks on airplanes with flammability reduction means. 

NATCA requests the FAA include documentation of all ex parte communications on the subject of the 

NPRM for the 757 FQIS AD and all pending ADs for other models and all agreements made with all 

design approval holders be added in the docket file for the NPRM. 

Thank you for your attention to this safety concern.

Steven Hansen

Chairman, National Safety Committee

National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Cell: 505-715-3979 Fax: 888-718-9694