Europe’s Airbus is ordering an immediate software change on a “significant number” of its best-selling A320 family of jets, in a move industry sources said would disrupt half the global fleet, or thousands of jets.
The move to different software, announced on Friday, which will affect 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets, must be carried out before the next routine flight, threatening cancellations or delays during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in the United States and beyond.
revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
“Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in service which may be impacted,” the company said.
“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” it added.
Industry sources said the incident that triggered the unexpected repair action involved a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, on October 30, in which several passengers were hurt following a sharp loss of altitude.
Flight 1230 made an emergency landing at Tampa, Florida, after a flight control problem and a sudden uncommanded drop in altitude, prompting an investigation by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
JetBlue and the FAA had no immediate comment.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is due to issue an emergency directive mandating the fix, Airbus said.
Two-hour repair
For about two-thirds of the affected jets, the recall will result in a relatively brief grounding as airlines revert to a previous software version, industry sources said.
Still, that comes at a time of intense demands on airline repair shops, already plagued by shortages of maintenance capacity and the grounding of hundreds of Airbus jets due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections.
Hundreds of the affected jets may also need hardware changed, threatening much longer waits, the sources said.
