We flew too close to the sun
Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
31–40 of 184 posts
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am worried about a software fix for what looks like hardware problem.
It could be as simple as storing multiple copies of the relevant data and adding a checksum, something like that. Hardware fix is the ultimate solution but it might be possible to paper over with software.
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Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#33[flagged]
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#34Do they really need to ground the entire fleet for that? One incident for ten thousand planes in the air for years. I'd think that giving airlines two months to fix it would be sufficient.
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#35I’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…
An early revision of the Raspberry Pi 2 would crash if you hit it with a bright light like a camera flash. Specifically a xenon flash. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=99167 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042 https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/xenon-death-flash-a-free-ph... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyptwlzRqaI
Yah, but that's a case of the package not being opaque enough.
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I stay buckled and I’m just a “normie” not afraid of flying that understands turbulence doesn’t always happen in a bell curve with some notice. Not sure if that makes you feel any better? :)
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#37There's a great postmortem here about what might have been a similar SEU (single event upset--bitflip) here: https://www.atsb.gov.au/sites/default/files/media/3532398/ao...
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#38Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like the event was something that happened to a plane. That said, I wouldn't think sunlight would be penetrating to the chips running the plane.
Gamma rays penetrate everything and have definitely been known to disrupt computer circuits.
Yes, which is why the solar flare scenario makes more sense.
Re: Airbus A320 – intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical for flight
#40I’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…
An early revision of the Raspberry Pi 2 would crash if you hit it with a bright light like a camera flash. Specifically a xenon flash. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=99167 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042 https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/xenon-death-flash-a-free-ph... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyptwlzRqaI
Completely unrelated and due to a design failure by the rpi folks.