this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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Flights disrupted after Airbus discovers intense sun radiation could impact flight control data (www.bbc.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/tech@programming.dev
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If anyone has an article with more technical details on what the solar radiation did, and how they're going to patch it, I'd like to read about it :)

Airbus said it discovered the issue after an investigation into an incident in which a plane flying between the US and Mexico suddenly lost altitude in October.

The JetBlue Airways flight made an emergency landing in Florida after at least 15 people were injured.

The problem identified with A320 aircrafts relates to a piece of computing software which calculates a plane's elevation.

Airbus discovered that, at high altitudes, its data could be corrupted by intense radiation released periodically by the Sun.

The A320 family are what is known as "fly by wire" planes. This means there is no direct mechanical link between the controls in the cockpit and the parts of the aircraft that actually govern flight, with the pilot's actions processed by a computer.

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

I would guess flares are getting more common and more powerful, and the protection was projected for less intensity without enough overhead.

Makes me wonder how big is protective capacity on the space station and satellites, but they are likely built with more security considerations than budget considerations