Airbus grounding

[BrendAn]

[BrendAn]

Something like 6000 aircraft have to have a software update.

[red750]

Apparently the software malfunction was caused by solar flares.

[onetrack]

Here's an ABC news article regarding the problem. Jetstar has had about 90 flights grounded. The repair involves a software update that takes about 2 hrs - but as always, a shortage of qualified LAMEs is a big part of the problem, that is causing delays.

The software "update" actually involves reverting to the previous version of the aircrafts computer programming. It appears the latest software update installed was unable to cope with the solar flares.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-29/jetstar-flights-grounded-delayed-due-to-airbus-a320-recall/106081408

 

[kgwilson]

Better to deal with the problem head on and suffer any consequences than do a Boeing & not tell anyone. 

[BurnieM]

So not a big job to fix it but a limited number of authorised maintenance staff who can do the job.

This could end up taking months to get the whole fleet flying again.

 

[facthunter]

I believe it affects about HALF of Jetstar's Fleet of A 320's. A softtware Issue.  I think the Number of AC involved is in the Mid 30's . Nev

[BrendAn]

8 minutes ago, facthunter said:

I believe it affects about HALF of Jetstar's Fleet of A 320's. A softtware Issue.  I think the Number of AC involved is in the Mid 30's . Nev

There are around 6000 AC affected around the world and yes we know it is a software issue.

[facthunter]

The "News" was about Jetstar's A 320's in Australia. Nev

[BrendAn]

6 minutes ago, facthunter said:

The "News" was about Jetstar's A 320's in Australia. Nev

This thread was about the airbus

Directive In the first post . They were talking about all aircraft not Jetstar. They said there are around  6000 affected.

[Marty_d]

What I don't understand is why Qantas and Virgin Australia weren't affected? Virgin perhaps because they only have 5 in fleet (according to their website which may be out of date), but Qantas has A319s, A320s and A321XLRs, but it's only Jetstar on the news.

[onetrack]

The ABC News article is most certainly centred around just the effect on Jetstar, and it's not an aviation technical report, and it ignores all the other affected airlines. Jetstar are most affected because they own around 90 A320's - but only 34 of the Jetstar A320's are affected by the recall.

 

Virgin only own 4 A320's affected by the recall, and were able to work around those aircraft being pulled from operations for the software revamp. Qantas are not affected, as none of their aircraft are covered by the recall.

[red750]

The problem lies in the aircraft that are grounded in more remote areas where there are no qualified LAME's to do the upgrade. They have to be flown in.

[BurnieM]

It is a problem with the current version of the software in a Thales built box.

The fix seems to be reverting to the previous version.

 

If they have not updated to the current version then they do not have a problem.

 

[facthunter]

Red, What are you basing that on?  Nev

Edited Sunday at 01:27 AM by facthunter

[BrendAn]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

The "News" was about Jetstar's A 320's in Australia. Nev

Nev when you flew airliners how reliable were they compared to the modern computerised versions.

 

[facthunter]

WE had Plenty of delays and failures . My (Opinion?) is the Modern stuff is Better in general. I  am still in touch with People flying in Airlines Now. I have flown "Fly by wire".  Nev

[BrendAn]

10 minutes ago, facthunter said:

WE had Plenty of delays and failures . My (Opinion?) is the Modern stuff is Better in general. I  am still in touch with People flying in Airlines Now. I have flown "Fly by wire".  Nev

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply you flew dc3 😁.  You often talk about the 727s.

I guess fly by wire takes a lot potential mechanical failures out of the system.

Edited Sunday at 01:47 AM by BrendAn

[red750]

An interview with Richard De Crespigny on the news last night.

[Blueadventures]

 

[jackc]

On 29/11/2025 at 7:44 PM, red750 said:

Apparently the software malfunction was caused by solar flares.

I would go as far to say b/s on this ?? 

[onetrack]

We are talking multiple flight control computers on the Airbus, and they runs 10's of thousands of lines of code continuously. These computers also check and cross-check the information feed from the multiple sources of information.

They also check on each other to ensure reliability of information being provided. This is all done by coding, and coding is basically only ones and zeros in an electronic system (the binary system). When someone writes up new code for an "improved version" of software, it is supposed to be removing "bugs" from the previous version.

 

However, as we all know, software updates are notorious for introducing other "bugs", while the update cures previous "bugs". If the software update was not tested extensively enough, it's entirely possible the update introduced system weaknesses when faced with intense solar radiation, that were not present in the previous software version.

 

Intense solar radiation is essentially an EMF event - whereby a major burst of electromagnetic energy can cause unwanted electronic response. Remember how you can get fluoro tubes to glow without a plugged-in power source, simply by holding them close to HV powerlines? The fluoros are energised by the intense magnetic field surrounding the HV powerlines.

 

So, accordingly, an intense burst of EMF from a solar flare can induce unwanted electric currents in electronic devices, and this can scramble the computers binary system/s as the electronics get rattled. Don't forget radiation levels are already much higher at RPT flight levels, and therefore the intensity of solar flare EMF's is much greater than we would receive on the surface of the Earth.

 

I don't think AB are BS'ing on this, but perhaps they are struggling to get a handle on what happened precisely, when the inadvertent flight control actions were carried out on the Airbus involved in the flight upset.

 

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/113684/why-did-the-airbus-a320-pitch-down-due-to-solar-radiation-recently-when-a-corru

 

[facthunter]

It's NOT BS.  SMART People would be on it immediately , and this is not the first time . I've revised My view. I prefer less reliance on A computer Programme.ie Something MECHANICAL with redundancy or Impeccable system Verification, No iff's or but's.   Nev

[jackc]

13 minutes ago, facthunter said:

It's NOT BS.  SMART People would be on it immediately , and this is not the first time . I've revised My view. I prefer less reliance on A computer Programme.ie Something MECHANICAL with redundancy or Impeccable system Verification, No iff's or but's.   Nev

I was in radio communications for 30 year, I had IPS software for calculation the effects of Solar Flares, because it was part of my job.

Now, blame Solar Flares all you like BUT, produce peer reviewed data at time of alleged Aircraft control failure where Solar Flares are suspected to impacted an aircraft?

Show me the Solar Forecast on day of incident? 
Just blaming a possible cause, without backup date, IS just b/s…….

[BurnieM]

It is possible for a solar flare to corrupt data in an electronic module leading to unexpected control inputs.

Relying on software to detect and correct these errors seems odd when shielding is cheap and generally reliable.

Error checking as a backup is a good idea but a well designed module case should mean it is almost never used.

 

Why would a multi thousand dollar electronic unit not already have relatively cheap shielding ?