Airbus SE cautioned that a large portion of its active A320 jetliner family fleet will require a software fix after a recent incident involving a Jetblue Airways Corp. airliner revealed that “intense solar radiation” could risk corrupting data that’s critical to maintaining functioning flight controls.
The company said a significant number of its A320 fleet, encompassing about 6,000 jets in total, may be impacted by the required fix, according to a statement sent by the European planemaker on Friday.
“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” the company said.
The advisory follows an incident on Oct. 30 involving a Jetblue aircraft that was flying from Cancun to Newark, New Jersey, that suffered a computer glitch that resulted in a sudden, unexpected downward pitch without pilot input. Nobody was injured, and the jet diverted to Tampa, Florida. A later investigation uncovered that one of the plane’s elevator-aileron computers — known as ELAC 2 — had malfunctioned.
The finding risks becoming a significant headache for Airbus, given the A320 family is the company’s by far most widely flown aircraft. According to people familiar with the situation, most of the