Many airline passengers booked to fly on the Airbus A320 family of aircraft could find their flights disrupted while urgent modifications are made to a piece of equipment susceptible to “intense solar radiation”. A total of 6,500 of the twin-jets are believed to be affected.
In most cases the necessary update is expected to take two hours. With tight scheduling for many aircraft, disruption was widespread in Europe, Asia and Australasia. But Britain's three biggest A320 operators – British Airways, easyJet and Wizz Air – say their operations are unaffected.
The Civil Aviation Authority had warned those aircraft would have to be modified “or remain on the ground from Sunday onwards until the software has been changed”. But by noon on Saturday Rob Bishton, the CAA’s chief executive, said: “I want to thank the airlines for working at pace to take this precautionary maintenance action.
“Thanks to their diligent and swift efforts, UK aviation has come together to minimise significant passenger disruption.”
Diarmuid O Conghaile, chief operations officer at Wizz Air, said: “The software update required by Airbus has been successfully implemented overnight on all of its affected Airbus A320 family aircraft. All flights today are operating, with no further disruption now anticipated as a result of the issue.”
Air France cancelled more than 50 flights that were scheduled to be operated by Airbus A320 family jets to and from Paris CDG between Friday evening and early afternoon on Saturday. They include an evening flight to Birmingham and the return flight to Paris.
Air New Zealand grounded its entire fleet of A320 aircraft on Saturday morning, but flights have now resumed.
Jetstar cancelled around 90 flights, mostly domestic Australian services, affecting more than 15,000 passengers – mostly flying in or out of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The Australian budget carrier now says: “We’re expecting all affected aircraft to be ready to return to service overnight, allowing flights to resume as planned on Sunday 30 November.”
Airbus issued a dramatic announcement on Friday evening saying: “Intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.
“Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 family aircraft currently in-service which may be impacted.”
The equipment in question is the elevator aileron computer (Elac). It controls the elevators that change the pitch of the aircraft, and the ailerons that enable the plane to turn. The fear is that solar radiation acting on the system corrupt data – which may trigger a movement that “may result in exceeding the aircraft’s structural capability”.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) has issued an “emergency airworthiness directive”, effective from 11.59pm on Saturday 29 November, instructing operators of the affected aircraft to take action.
Easa’s directive says: “An Airbus A320 aeroplane recently experienced an uncommanded and limited pitch down event. The autopilot remained engaged throughout the event, with a brief and limited loss of altitude.”
It is believed that the incident involved was a JetBlue flight on 30 October from Cancun in Mexico to Newark, New Jersey. At least 15 people were hurt when the aircraft suddenly dropped. The plane made an emergency landing at Tampa in Florida.
Airbus said it “identified a malfunction of the affected Elac as possible contributing factor”.
The planemaker said: “This condition, if not corrected, could lead in the worst-case scenario to an uncommanded elevator movement that may result in exceeding the aircraft’s structural capability.”
The fix for most of the planes involves a software update, taking around two hours. But for around 900 of the aircraft, new hardware is required. Airbus says it is “working to accelerate delivery of the hardware to affected airlines”.
The Airbus A320 family, which includes the A319 and A321, is now the world’s most popular shorthaul plane. It overtook the Boeing 737 in terms of deliveries last month.
According to Cirium data, the A320 family operated 1,414,516 flights in September alone – roughly 2,000 take-offs and landings every hour. Around 8 million seats depart each day on the series of aircraft.
A senior UK aviation source said: “It’s a serious issue but one which looks to be tackled very rapidly, and that in turn will exacerbate disruption to passengers.
“It’s a reminder that where passengers can take safety for granted, everyone in the aviation industry cannot and this is one of those rare occasions where decisive action is clearly needed to protect safety.”
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said: “I am aware of the technical issue impacting certain aircraft and concerns over how this will affect passengers and flights this evening. Passengers who are due to fly this weekend should check with their carriers for the latest information.
“The good news is it seems the impact on UK airlines seems limited with a smaller number of aircraft requiring more complex software and hardware changes.
“I would really like to thank the experts, staff and airlines who are working at pace to address this and reassure passengers that work is ongoing. It is heartening this issue has been identified and will be addressed so swiftly demonstrating the high aviation safety standards globally.”
The Colombian national airline, Avianca, said that 70 per cent of its fleet was affected and warned “significant disruptions to operations will inevitably occur over the next 10 days”. The carrier has stopped selling new flights up to and including 8 December “to avoid a greater impact and to be able to rebook passengers on available flights”.
On Friday afternoon and evening, Avianca cancelled a dozen flights to and from its hub at Bogota – mostly on domestic links.
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