"Airbus SE cautioned that a large portion of its active A320 jetliner family fleet will require a software fix after a recent incident involving a Jetblue Airways Corp. airliner revealed that "intense solar radiation" could risk corrupting data that's critical to maintaining functioning flight controls. The company said a significant number of its A320 fleet, encompassing about 6,000 jets in total, may be impacted by the required fix, according to a statement sent by the European planemaker on Friday."
"The advisory follows an incident on Oct. 30 involving a Jetblue aircraft that was flying from Cancun to Newark, New Jersey, that suffered a computer glitch that resulted in a sudden, unexpected downward pitch without pilot input. Nobody was injured, and the jet diverted to Tampa, Florida. A later investigation uncovered that one of the plane's elevator-aileron computers - known as ELAC 2 - had malfunctioned."
"The finding risks becoming a significant headache for Airbus, given the A320 family is the company's by far most widely flown aircraft. According to people familiar with the situation, most of the jets can receive an uncomplicated update from the cockpit with minimal downtime. But about 1,000 older jets will need an actual hardware upgrade and will have to be grounded for the duration of the maintenance, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing non-public findings."
Airbus alerted that a large portion of the active A320-family fleet may require a software fix after intense solar radiation was found to risk corruption of data critical to flight controls. About 6,000 A320s could be affected, with most receiving a cockpit software update causing minimal downtime. Approximately 1,000 older jets will require hardware upgrades and will need to be grounded for maintenance. The advisory follows an Oct. 30 JetBlue flight that experienced an unexpected downward pitch due to an ELAC 2 malfunction; no injuries occurred and the jet diverted safely. An Alert Operators Transmission will be issued and reflected in an EASA emergency directive.
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