The alarm was raised yesterday, with Airbus requesting an update to the control software of some aircraft because they may have been damaged by intense solar radiation . And according to some sources, in addition to the software update, a hardware realignment may also be necessary, which would lead to major disruptions to operations.
Thousands of aircraft are involved: the intervention on the A319s, A320s, and A321s —to be carried out from 00:59 on Sunday, November 30—will take from a minimum of "three hours" to a maximum of "a few weeks," but comes at a time when people are starting to travel for the winter holidays.
The decision was made following what happened on October 30 to an A320 flying between Mexico and the United States : the jet, in full cruise mode and therefore with the autopilot active, began to descend in an uncontrolled manner for a few seconds before returning to altitude, with around fifteen people injured.
The checks were then carried out and the conclusion was reached that "intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to the operation of the flight controls" of the A-320s . This led to the decision to request the update to avoid accidents.
According to Airbus data, approximately 11,300 aircraft of the A320 family, which also includes the A319s and A321s, are in service today. And in the EASA bulletin, the intervention concerns all of these aircraft not only in the "classic" version (A319, A320, A321) but also in the more recent ones (A319neo, A320neo, A321neo).
A stop, therefore, which risks having serious repercussions on air traffic following the grounding of 1000 aircraft with modern Pratt & Whitney engines , stopped for extraordinary maintenance.
"We apologize for the inconvenience caused and will work closely with operators, keeping safety as our top priority," Airbus said, adding that it has proactively asked aviation authorities around the world to issue an alert to operators to take immediate precautionary action.
