Plain answers
What is an airworthiness directive?
An airworthiness directive, an AD, is a legally enforceable order: inspect or fix this specific item, on these specific aircraft, by this deadline. It is aviation's recall system, except compliance is mandatory, audited, and tracked per airframe.
A law, not a memo
In the US, ADs are federal regulations issued under 14 CFR Part 39; EASA does the same for Europe, and authorities worldwide adopt or mirror them. An aircraft that has not complied with an applicable AD may not legally fly, except under the narrow conditions the AD itself spells out. Compliance is recorded in each airframe's maintenance records and checked in audits.
Why an AD in the news is usually good news
Hundreds of ADs are issued every year, most for narrow technical items you never hear about. When one makes headlines, what actually happened is: a problem was found, its affected population was bounded to specific serial numbers, a fix was engineered, and a deadline was set. That is the system surfacing and closing an issue in public, on the record. We ingest new FAA ADs from the Federal Register daily and track sourced concerns per aircraft type, active ones flagged, resolved ones kept as context, each with its document number and date.
How this site uses them
Every aircraft type page and flight briefing here carries its sourced airworthiness status: an active, dated concern applies a small, bounded, self-clearing flag; a resolved one stays visible as context and stops affecting anything. The rule is the same one this page follows: name the document, show the date, and never turn a fix order into a fear signal.
Sources: 14 CFR Part 39 (Airworthiness Directives); FAA "Airworthiness Directives" overview at faa.gov; EASA AD publishing at ad.easa.europa.eu. Checked 2026-08. How we score and display concerns: methodology.