Solar radiation casts cloud over world’s most common commercial airliner, the A320
Airline passengers have been left stranded at airports after aerospace manufacturer Airbus flagged a software glitch overnight affecting more than half its global fleet of A320 planes.
Airline passengers have been left stranded at airports across the country after aerospace manufacturer Airbus reported a software glitch overnight affecting more than half its global fleet of A320 planes.
Jetstar is among scores of airlines worldwide caught up in the urgent software update ordered by Airbus after the manufacturer discovered its A320 family may be compromised by solar radiation.
The discovery followed an incident in the US involving a JetBlue A320, which made an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida on October 30 after a flight control problem.
Three passengers were injured when an uncommanded drop in altitude occurred, despite the weather being calm.
An investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and JetBlue ensued, leading to the Airbus direction to airlines that operate its A320 family.
At a press conference on Saturday, Tyrone Simes, chief pilot for Jetstar, said only 34 of the airline’s 85 A320 aircraft were affected, and as of late afternoon 20 were ready to return to service.
He said 90 Jetstar flights had been impacted so far but warned there was the potential for further disruption across the network on Sunday.
“We expect to see further disruption today, but then maybe a little bit of minor disruption tomorrow,” Mr Simes said. “But we’re trying to rectify the situation as quickly as we possibly can.”
A spokeswoman for the airline late on Saturday said they expected the remaining 14 aircraft to be ready overnight allowing flights to resume as planned on Sunday.
“However, there may be some flow on delays or cancellations on Sunday as the network fully recovers,” she said.
“We will contact customers by SMS and email if there are any further disruptions.”
Qantas’s domestic and short haul international fleet is dominated by Boeing 737-800s, same as rival Virgin Australia.
Air New Zealand has 37 A320s in its fleet. Chief risk and safety officer Nathan McGraw, in an update on Saturday afternoon, said the airline anticipated 20 flights to be affected across the weekend.
“The airline is well under way with the required software updates across our A320 fleet,” he said. “Thanks to the significant efforts of our engineering and operations teams, we expect all affected aircraft to be updated and returned to service by tomorrow evening.”
Mr McGraw said customers could make one free change to their booked flight within seven days of their original booking, hold the value of their fare in credit for 12 months, or request a refund if they choose not to travel, including for non refundable fares.
A statement from Airbus said analysis of the JetBlue event had 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,” said the statement.
“Airbus has worked proactively with the aviation authorities to request immediate precautionary action from operators via an alert operators transmission in order to implement the available software and/or hardware protection, and ensure the fleet is safe to fly.”
Airbus acknowledged the recommendations would lead to operational disruption to passengers and customers, and apologised for the inconvenience.
“We will work closely with operators while keeping safety as our number one and overriding priority,” said Airbus.
Late this year, the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered commercial jetliner family in history, after reaching 12,260 cumulative deliveries.
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Originally published as Solar radiation casts cloud over world’s most common commercial airliner, the A320
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