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Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

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Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#21
I've noticed that some carriers seem to be suggesting that there might be no impact to flights, but isn't this an immediate grounding for each aircraft until the update is made?

How is it possible that this wouldn't impact upon flight schedules?

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#22
post #21

I've noticed that some carriers seem to be suggesting that there might be no impact to flights, but isn't this an immediate grounding for each aircraft until the update is made? How is it possible that this wouldn't impact upon flight schedules?

N of 1, but I’m stuck in phoenix overnight because our flight was delayed an hour and a half by airbus maintenance and we missed our connection.

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The grounding of Airbus A320neo aircraft around the world can be traced back to an incident on a JetBlue flight operating a Cancun to New Jersey service on 30 October. > At least 15 passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after a sudden drop in altitude on the flight from Mexico was forced to make an emergency landing in Florida, US aviation officials said at the time. > The Thursday flight from Cancun wa…

> At least 15 passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after a sudden drop in altitude on the flight from Mexico was forced to make an emergency landing in Florida, US aviation officials said at the time. I’m surprised passengers are allowed to unbuckle for so much of each flight. You can get injured while buckled it, but that seems less common.

The flight attendants/safety card will tell you to stay buckled whenever seated, even if the seat belt sign is off, but many (most?) people will ignore that guidance and stay unbuckled for as long as they are technically allowed.

Only aviation professionals or recovering flight phobics like me who have watched every episode of Air Crash Investigation will take proactive safety measure of their own accord. To normies it's all just a pointless hassle.

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#25
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Analysis of a recent event” I presume they mean a Coronal Mass Ejection.

There was a very large CME ten days ago. The NOAA scale had predicted a high likelihood of disruptions, and had specifically suggested that spacecraft and high altitude aircraft could be impacted. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation https://kauai.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/CMEscoreboard/prediction/de...

FWIW the "industry sources say" line on the incident is that it occurred on 30 October[1], so further back than ten days ago but of course there may have been other CME incidents at that time.

The European Agency Aviation Safety Agency [2] instruction describes the characteristics of the incident but not the date.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/28/airbus-issu...

[2] https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/2025-0268-E

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#26
post #15
post #7

I’d really, really like to know what microcontroller family this was found on. Assuming that this is a safety processor (lockstep, ECC, etc) it suggests that ECC was insufficient for the level of bit flips they’re seeing — and if the concern is data corruption, not unintended restart, it means it’s enough flips in one word to be undetectable. The environment they’re operating in isn’t that different from everyone els…

I am worried about a software fix for what looks like hardware problem.

Gracefully handling hardware faults is a software problem. The Air France Flight 447 crash was the result of bad software and bad hardware.

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#27
post #8

Has BoFesc vibes "It's friday, so I get into work early, before lunch even. The phone rings. Shit! I turn the page on the excuse sheet. "SOLAR FLARES" stares out at me. I'd better read up on that..."

Solar Flares was always my favourite result on the BoFH Excuse Generator.

http://jefflane.org/bofh/bofh.pl

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#28
post #21

I've noticed that some carriers seem to be suggesting that there might be no impact to flights, but isn't this an immediate grounding for each aircraft until the update is made? How is it possible that this wouldn't impact upon flight schedules?

The grounding is for 6000 of 11000 A320 series. I believe it's some combination of software and hardware configuration that is at risk.

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am worried about a software fix for what looks like hardware problem.

Gracefully handling hardware faults is a software problem. The Air France Flight 447 crash was the result of bad software and bad hardware.

I'm reminded of the Apollo moon landing where the computer was rapidly rebooting and being in an OK-ish state to continue to be useful almost immediately

Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight

#30
Following the Airbus A320 emergency airworthiness action, everyone will be talking about the ELAC (Elevator Aileron Computer) manufactured by Thales, which caused a sudden pitch-down without pilot input on JetBlue 1230 back in October.

So here’s everything you need to know about ELAC.

The ELAC System in the Airbus A320: The Brains Behind Pitch and Roll Control https://x.com/Turbinetraveler/status/1994498724513345637

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