The best-selling commercial aircraft in history is now the subject on an emergency warning, as major manufacturer Airbus has issued a radiation alert for 6,000 of its planes following an 'uncontrolled drop' incident.
Planes are incredibly complex vehicles and understandably a lot has to go into maintaining their operation, as far more could go wrong if even one thing went awry.
There has seemingly been an alarming number of plane crashes this year, leaving some travelers nervous to fly even if they do end up opting for the 'safest' seat on the flight, and this new warning from major airplane manufacturer Airbus won't make them feel any better.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Airbus recently urged many of the world's leading airlines to sideline its most popular plane, as there appears to be an alarming vulnerability in the onboard software in the event of a solar storm.
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The warning appears to have been prompted by a problem that emerged on a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey, where the A320 plane unexpectedly suffered an uncontrolled drop in altitude as the result of a burst of energy particles from the Sun.
This saw the plane drop almost 25,000 feet from 35,000 feet to just 10,000 feet so that it could perform an emergency landing, and it left at least 15 people with injuries, including possible lacerations on their heads due to the drop.
The intense solar radiation that hit this particular flight caused critical data in the plane's onboard computer systems to become corrupted, which then led to the momentary drop in altitude as a result of the pilots having no accurate positioning information.
Now, Airbus has urged all airlines currently using its A320 planes – which unfortunately is a lot – to remove them from service and update both the software and hardware of the vehicle to prevent this solar storm issue from occurring again.
"Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in service which may be impacted," the company has outlined in a new statement, although it's unclear quite how many of the roughly 6,000 vehicles in operation globally will need to undergo this essential technological upgrade.
In terms of the airlines, Delta, United Airlines, and JetBlue are all in the top 10 when it comes to A320 operators worldwide, and they are joined by Lufthansa in Germany, IndiGo in India, and easyJet in the United Kingdom as companies that could be affected by this.