Flight disruption warning as Airbus requests modifications to 6k planes
22 comments
·November 28, 2025loeg
CGMthrowaway
On the Qantas 72 flight (2008), the ATSB report showed the same power spike that upset the ADIRU also left tidy 1-word corruptions in the flight data recorder. Those aligned with the clock cycle, shared the same amplitude and were confined to single ARINC words. That is pretty much exactly the signature of a failing solid state relay or contactor on the shared avionics power bus (upstream of both FDR and fly by wire).
Radation-driven bit flips would be Poisson distributed in time and energy. So that is one way to find out
captainkrtek
Do you think they're using the guise of "its solar radiation" as cover to do a software update to fix a more problematic "bug", and perhaps tangentially there are some changes in said-update to improve some error correcting type code (eg: related to detecting spurious bit flips).
piker
Interesting how radiation issues could be solved in software.
SoftTalker
Agreed, I expected additional shielding or something physical like that.
matja
Perhaps it's improving the checksum algorithm on network packets, or even ... adding one.
stackghost
It comes down to voting algorithms and memory persistence. Sometimes there is a threshold before data are "voted out".
I don't work on the A320 but solar radiation is a well-known issue in avionics, generally speaking.
Edit: deleted some speculation
mandeepj
Maybe there's a range that requires a change?
Now imagine, if it was over the air update, then maybe there would be no disruption?
lazide
Finally turning on the ECC RAM option?
AnimalMuppet
s/solved/mitigated/
loloquwowndueo
At least they didn’t wait for a crash before doing this :/
nrhrjrjrjtntbt
Well "I ain't going" didn't let a mere crash or two stop them.
Iridescent_
The proper reaction when you have a potential issue in your engineering
loloquwowndueo
Sorry forgot to add “unlike that other aerospace company”
nickff
Airbus is not immune to design & manufacturing issues with fatal consequences, they’re just not too-of-mind these days. A similar issue seems to have ‘cropped up’ on this flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72
There was a television show (episode) about another design issue (which was fatal) some time ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
petcat
As if Airbus hasn't suffered horrific crashes of their airplanes killing hundreds of people
limagnolia
It was only discovered after a flight experienced the issue, though. It could have been much more serious.
ChrisArchitect
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082296
The live feed buries the only useful information at the very bottom of the article:
> The plane manufacturer says it has found that intense radiation from the Sun could corrupt data crucial to flight controls.
> It’s thought most will be able to undergo a simple software update.
> The issue was discovered after a JetBlue aircraft en-route from Mexico to the United States in October experienced a ‘sudden drop in altitude’.
> The plane made an emergency landing, with reports at the time suggesting 15 to 20 people suffered minor injuries.
> It’s thought the incident was caused by intense solar radiation, which corrupted data in a computer used to help control the aircraft.