United Airlines Airbus A320.
Airbus has ordered the recall of 6,000 A320 jets to repair a software glitch that will impact major carriers during the busiest travel season of the year, the aerospace company said in a release on Friday.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines all will be impacted by the Airbus decision.
“Analysis of a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,” Airbus said in a release. “Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in-service which may be impacted.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an immediate Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) for certain Airbus A319 and A320/321 airplanes that requires replacing or modifying the software that controls the airplanes’ elevator ailerons.
The EAD also prohibits installing the affected software on any aircraft. The FAA’s action mirrors an EAD from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, which certificates Airbus airplanes.
“Airbus has worked proactively with the aviation authorities to request immediate precautionary action from operators via an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT) in order to implement the available software and/or hardware protection, and ensure the fleet is safe to fly,” Airbus said. “This AOT will be reflected in an Emergency Airworthiness Directive from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).”
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