FAA Orders Crack Inspections on Older Airbus A320 and A321 Cargo Doors

On August 27, 2026, the FAA finalized a rule requiring inspections of the bulk cargo door frame on certain older Airbus A320 and A321 jets. A ground fatigue test had found cracking at the corners of that door opening. The rule takes effect October 1, 2026.

How the crack turned up

The finding traces back to a fatigue test Airbus ran on an A320 airframe as part of its extended service goal program, which tests how many additional flight cycles an older airframe can safely fly beyond its original design life.

That test found cracks at fastener holes on both the forward and aft upper corners of the bulk cargo door opening, on both sides of the fuselage. European regulator EASA issued its own directive covering the defect in September 2025; the FAA’s rule adopts that mandate for US-registered jets.

Who has to comply, and what they must do

The rule only applies to A320 and A321 jets that carry an extended service goal limit in their maintenance program, meaning older, higher-cycle airframes rather than the current production fleet.

Affected operators must run a rototest inspection, a rotating probe check for surface and subsurface cracks, at the door frame area. If a crack turns up, the aircraft must be repaired before its next flight using an FAA- or EASA-approved method. If no crack is found, mechanics must still cold-work the fastener holes, a process that compresses the metal around each hole to slow future crack growth.

Why a ground test matters here

Extended service goal testing exists precisely to catch problems like this before they show up in the working fleet. Airbus flexes a dedicated test airframe through many more cycles than any single jet will fly, compressing years of wear into a controlled program, so a weak point surfaces on a test rig rather than mid-flight.

That is also why the FAA’s rule reaches jets that have not shown any cracking themselves. The directive is written around which airplanes share the tested design and cycle count, not around which ones have already displayed a symptom.

On these narrowbody jets, the bulk cargo door serves the smaller aft hold used for loose baggage and odd-sized items, not the main forward hold. A crack at its frame would not depressurize the cabin on its own, but the FAA still treats any undetected structural crack as a threat to the fuselage’s overall integrity.

It is the second FAA directive this month aimed at the older A320 family, following a separate rule proposing nose gear inspections across the same generation of jets. Both trace to age and cycle count rather than a single build defect.