Europe: Airbus has ordered an urgent software change on a significant portion of its best-selling A320 family of jets after a recent flight-control scare linked to intense solar radiation, in what is shaping up to be one of the largest recalls in the planemaker’s history. The update, which must be applied before the aircraft’s next routine flight, covers around 6,000 A320-family planes worldwide and is expected to trigger delays and cancellations at the height of a busy travel period.
In a statement, Airbus said an incident involving an A320-family aircraft had revealed that intense solar radiation could corrupt data critical to flight-control systems, prompting it to identify thousands of in-service jets potentially affected by the problem. The issue has been traced to the elevator and aileron computer (ELAC), which converts pilot inputs into movements of the elevators and ailerons, thereby controlling the aircraft’s pitch and roll.
Industry sources said the trigger was an October 30 JetBlue flight from Cancun to Newark that suffered a sudden, uncommanded loss of altitude and diverted to Tampa, Florida, where several passengers were treated for injuries, leading to a US investigation into a possible ELAC malfunction. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is now preparing an emergency directive mandating the fix, while US regulators are also examining the incident and the broader software risk.
For roughly two-thirds of affected jets, airlines can implement a relatively quick remedy by reverting to an earlier software version, a process taking about two hours per aircraft and often achievable during overnight checks. However, more than 1,000 aircraft may also require hardware changes to their ELAC units, raising the prospect of much longer groundings for those planes as maintenance shops juggle existing backlogs and engine-related repairs.
Major carriers including American Airlines, Wizz Air, Lufthansa, IndiGo, easyJet and Avianca have begun pulling aircraft from service temporarily to perform the fixes, with some reporting dozens of cancellations and extensive disruption over the coming days. While Airbus and regulators stressed that safety is paramount and that aircraft cannot return to regular service until the update is complete, they also noted that many jets should be able to re-enter operation swiftly once the software and, where necessary, hardware changes are in place.
The A320 family, first flown in the 1980s and pioneering fly-by-wire computerised controls, is the world’s most-delivered jet series and a workhorse of both full-service and low-cost airlines, meaning any large-scale recall has immediate global repercussions. The episode underscores how modern aviation increasingly depends on complex software and how external factors such as solar radiation can pose unexpected risks to critical flight-control systems.