Airbus A320 software issue hits thousands of planes as passengers face major disruption

The Independent

‘Significant number’ of Airbus flights could be cancelled due to solar radiation Source: The Independent, PA

Transcript

00:00The aviation world has been shocked by the sudden airworthiness directive issued by Airbus

00:07to operators of Airbus A320 family aircraft.

00:13The problem actually began on the 30th of October.

00:17There was a JetBlue flight going from Cancun in Mexico to Newark in New Jersey.

00:23Halfway through its flight it suffered an uncommanded sharp descent

00:28and the investigators of course have been looking into that.

00:32They concluded that a piece of equipment that controls the elevators,

00:37the flaps at the back of the aircraft that basically make it fly level or go up or go down,

00:43that had been affected by a solar flare, a burst of intense solar radiation.

00:51There is a fix to this which for most of the 6,000 or so aircraft affected

00:57is simply a two-hour software upgrade.

01:00For some of the planes though it will require a piece of hardware, maybe about 900 of them.

01:07Airbus says it is trying to get the equipment out to the airlines as soon as possible.

01:13The big issue for a lot of travellers is will my flight be cancelled?

01:18Now the good news is that British Airways says only three of its planes were affected.

01:22They've all been sorted out, no impact.

01:25EasyJet, which originally warned that there could be disruption over the weekend,

01:30says no, all of its aircraft are doing fine.

01:34And then Whiz Air is saying, well we're hoping to run a normal service

01:38but simply we are waiting for those aircraft to be fixed and there could be some disruption.

01:46Actually it's much worse in France where more than 50 Air France flights

01:51to and from the Paris airports have been grounded

01:54and across in Australia Jetstar has cancelled around 90 flights,

02:00mostly serving Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney

02:02but also affecting flights to and from New Zealand

02:07and Air New Zealand also has grounded some flights.

02:11Elsewhere, Avianca of Colombia says they're not even selling tickets

02:16until the 8th of December while they sort out their fleet.

02:21India has said it doesn't want Airbus A320s flying

02:24if they haven't had the necessary modification

02:27but that is taking place

02:29and there will be passengers wondering about whether

02:32the aircraft should actually have been grounded earlier.

02:37Once the incident happened on this flight

02:39which resulted in 15 injuries

02:42should they not have actually said

02:44OK, we're going to stop flying this plane while we figure out what happened.

02:49It's a question of proportionality.

02:51That would have led to absolute chaos worldwide.

02:558 million seats a day are departing on Airbus A320 family jets

03:01so I think this was a proportionate response.

03:05we will move forward to a 5 today with the Captions under infrared

03:06in an air다리 posted.

03:08Oh, I'm going to go on withilimum couramels

03:11OK, we don't have no idea how many people can do

03:29in the 98thates had about energy

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended