Global Flight Disruptions After Airbus Orders Fixes for A320 Planes
According to a report by The Guardian, flights around the world were delayed and cancelled following Airbus’ decision to order fixes for 6,000 of its A320 series planes.
The company has taken this action after discovering that “intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,” as mentioned in a press release on their website.
Industry sources, as reported by Reuters, have pointed to an incident involving a JetBlue flight from Cancun to Newark on October 30 as the trigger for this precautionary measure. The plane experienced a sudden loss of altitude and had to make an emergency landing in Tampa.
The Federal Aviation Administration has responded by issuing an emergency airworthiness directive, requiring the affected planes to revert to previous software versions before they can resume operations. Additionally, Airbus has stated that a smaller number of planes will need to undergo hardware changes.
