FAA Releases AD on Cirrus Vision Jet

Following a well-publicized ground fire on December 27, 2019, beginning in the cabin of a Cirrus Vision Jet in Santa Monica, the company released a service bulletin (SBA5X-23-03) on February 7 to correct the problem, which was traced to a potential malfunction of the audio interface circuit card that could have resulted in the overheating of the cards. Cirrus also released a customer communication missive to outline the company’s steps to resolve the problem.

The FAA released an emergency airworthiness directive (2020-03-05) on Friday, February 14, to mandate compliance with the service bulletin. No flights are permitted in the aircraft until the cards have been removed, with the exception of those operating under a special ferry-flight permit. At the time of the issuance, approximately 97 percent of the fleet had already been addressed, according to a company spokesperson. The current SF50 fleet stands at more than 170 aircraft.

There are 12 of the cards on board each SF50—all of them located in the cabin—and they provide the audio and microphone functions to the 1/8-inch jacks located adjacent to the passenger’s USB outlets. While the removal disables the smaller jacks, the aviation headset audio/mic jacks in the aircraft are not affected.