Airbus, one of the biggest aircraft makers globally, has issued a major warning that threatens to ground thousands of the passenger jets worldwide.
The aeronautics company announced Friday that they have discovered a potential vulnerability in the software on board the Airbus A320 during solar storms, which may hinder pilots from steering or stabilizing the plane while in the air.
Airbus issued an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT), a global warning that urges all airlines using the A320 passenger jet to immediately update their software and hardware to better protect against radiation interference.
The problem was reportedly exposed when a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey suddenly suffered an uncontrolled drop in altitude on October 30, including causing the plane to make an emergency landing in Florida.
An investigation found intense solar radiation corrupted critical data in the flight control computers, causing the plane to momentarily lose accurate positioning information and plunge downwards.
Intense solar radiation in Earth’s atmosphere is often caused by solar flares or coronal mass ejections, which bombard the planet with powerful bursts of charged particles and electromagnetic energy.
These space weather events can sometimes interfere with satellites, GPS, radio signals, and, in this case, even the electronics inside modern aircraft flying at high altitudes.
The A320 recently became the best-selling commercial aircraft in history, surpassing the Boeing 737. Industry experts fear the problem could impact 6,000 jets, according to Reuters.
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Airbus has issued an emergency alert for the A320 passenger jet (Pictured) which could suffer electronics problems during solar storms
Intense solar activity in Earth’s atmosphere results from solar flares or coronal mass ejections striking the planet with charged particles that can damage electronic (Stock Image)
‘Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,’ the company wrote in a statement Friday.
The Airbus A320 family includes the A319, A320, and longer A321 models, and more than 12,000 have now been delivered around the world.
It is a narrow-body, twin-engine plane designed mainly for short and medium-haul flights, like New York to Los Angeles or London to Madrid, and is the aircraft flyers are most likely to board on a typical domestic or regional trip.
Depending on how the airline configures the seats, a single A320-family jet can carry anywhere from about 120 to 240 passengers, making it the airline workhorse that flies millions of people every day.
