Flights Delayed After Airbus Confirms Solar Radiation Could Pose Threat to Controls

Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled after Airbus announced an urgent new update for their popular A320 family of jets to account for solar radiation in their equipment.

The move came after a JetBlue A320 plunged from the sky several weeks ago on a trip from Cancún to Newark, New Jersey, injuring 15 people. The plane was able to make an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, but Airbus thoroughly investigated the incident to determine its cause.

After the investigation, Airbus found that solar radiation at high intensities, like during solar flares, could corrupt the software within equipment on their A320 jets, causing pilots to lose control of the aircraft. While the incident only occurred once, Airbus created an update for the system to prevent it from happening again, protecting all of their passengers worldwide.

Airbus quickly confirmed that all airlines needed to install the update as soon as possible, and the US' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) quickly released mandates for the fix.

Airbus' A320 family includes A319s, A320s, and A321s, and is the best-selling jet in the world, with over 6,000 of them in use. However, this meant that all 6,000 jets would need the update to prevent corruption from solar radiation, and installing the new software would take approximately two hours.

Because of this, many airlines were forced to delay or cancel dozens of flights, but this depended on how many A320 jets they owned– some airlines, like United, maintain just five or six A320s, while other airlines, like JetBlue, IndiGo, and Air India, maintain hundreds of the jets, forcing them to ground most or all of their fleet.

However, US airlines attempted to avoid cancellations due to the timing of the update release– as Thanksgiving week winds down, millions of people across the United States are now flying back home after travel, leading to peak airport crowds.

In fact, this year remains one of the busiest travel years in American history, with almost 82 million people projected to travel during Thanksgiving, according to AAA. While most residents traveled by car, over 6 million people are expected to have flown domestically, and the FAA expects a total of around 360,000 flights across the US during the week– the busiest Thanksgiving travel week in 15 years.

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In a Sentence: Hope sustained us during that difficult time.

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