Airbus orders software fix to thousands of planes due to solar radiation risk

Flights were delayed and cancelled globally after Airbus ordered fixes to 6,000 of its A320 series planes, according to The Guardian.

The company said it’s taking action because “analysis of a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.”

Citing industry sources, Reuters reports that the event in question was an October 30 JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey, in which the plane suddenly lost altitude and had to make an emergency landing in Tampa.

The Federal Aviation Administration has reportedly issued an emergency airworthiness directive calling for the affected planes to revert to earlier software before they can fly again. A smaller subset will need to have their hardware changed, Airbus said.