Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

We are superseding Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2005-14-07 for certain The Boeing Company Model 727, 727C, 727-100, 727-100C, 727-200, and 727-200F series airplanes. AD 2005-14-07 required repetitive inspections of the carriage attach fittings on the inboard and outboard foreflaps of each wing for cracking and other discrepancies, and corrective actions if necessary. This new AD requires reducing certain repetitive inspection intervals for the inboard and outboard carriage attach fittings for the outboard foreflaps, requires previously optional terminating actions which install improved outboard foreflap carriage attach fittings, and adds new initial and repetitive inspections of those fittings and corrective actions if necessary. This AD was prompted by a report of broken inboard and outboard carriage attach fittings of the outboard foreflaps found during an inspection. We are issuing this AD to detect and correct fatigue cracking of the attach fittings of the foreflap carriage of the wings, which could result in partial or complete loss of the foreflap and consequent loss of controllability of the airplane.