Airbus has ordered an urgent software update for a large portion of its A320 fleet after an incident revealed that strong solar radiation can corrupt flight-control data. Airlines must apply the fix before affected jets fly again, which could cause short-notice delays or cancellations during a peak travel weekend.
The issue came to light after a JetBlue A320 flying from Cancun to Newark suddenly dropped altitude and diverted to Tampa. Regulators are preparing an emergency directive, and Airbus admits the fix may disrupt operations. Most planes can be updated within a couple of hours, though hundreds may need hardware changes that take longer.
Roughly half of the global A320 fleet (over 6000 airplanes) is affected. American Airlines says around 340 of its jets require the update and expects to complete most of them within days. With more than 11,000 A320-family jets in service, this is one of the largest recalls in Airbus history.
Hmmm. I’ve heard a lot of aircraft are experiencing this recently. The 787 had a similar issue. I wonder if the computer equipment on these aircraft are shared. Also, over 6000 aircraft being grounded from this is pretty crazy. Hopefully this fix prevents it from happening again
A couple of my mtx acquaintances are working on this right now. It’s just a couple of hours for the fix to be patched through for each airframe, so I wouldn’t expect long-term disruptions for carriers with space to spare. It’s more of an interesting quirk with solar radiation messing with bytes of data.
American is through with half their A320 fleet already and United just has a few affected to worry about.
It seems like a lot of circumstances have to line up for something to go wrong, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. As much as the disruptions might suck, I’m glad Airbus is erring on the side of caution.
Last year when I was flying at night during a solar storm, one of my coms on top of my aircraft had interference issues from the northern lights. All it really did was make it hard for others to hear me and fixing it was simply switching to the com on the bottom of the aircraft. Pretty interesting experience though
On balance, this further demonstrates it’s not a question of this manufacturer vs that manufacturer, but that in general, aviation systems and safety involve complex systems requiring continuous assessment and improvement.
This hasn’t been a great week for the A320. According to Reuters, Airbus discovered “several dozen” A320-family aircraft with production flaws on the fuselage.
American 
