Overview
- Clive Dyer of the University of Surrey says solar activity on Oct. 30 was too low to affect the flight and proposes a cosmic-ray strike on avionics instead.
- Airbus previously said intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to A320 flight controls after analyzing the Oct. 30 incident.
- More than 6,000 A320-family jets were directed to receive an immediate software update, with brief groundings to install the fix.
- The JetBlue A320 dropped suddenly en route from Cancún to New Jersey and made an emergency landing in Tampa, where about 15 to 20 people were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
- Reports note rising solar activity in recent months and longstanding concerns about high-energy particles disrupting microelectronics, while the precise cause of the event remains contested.