Airbus issues ‘significant’ A320 recall after flight-control incident

Europe’s Airbus said on Friday it was ordering an immediate software change on a “significant number” of its best-selling A320 family of jets in a move that industry sources said would bring disruption to half the global fleet, or thousands of jets.

The move must be carried out before the next routine flight, according to a separate bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters, threatening cancellations or delays during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in the United States and beyond.

Airbus said in a statement a recent incident involving an A320-family aircraft had revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls.

“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” it said.

Industry sources said the incident that triggered the unexpected repair action involved a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, on October 30, in which several passengers were hurt following a sharp loss of altitude.

Flight 1230 made an emergency landing at Tampa, Florida, after a flight control problem and a sudden uncommanded drop in altitude, prompting an FAA investigation.

JetBlue and the FAA had no immediate comment.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is due to issue an emergency directive mandating the fix, Airbus said.

For about two-thirds of the affected jets, the recall will result in a relatively brief grounding as airlines revert to a previous software version, industry sources said.

Still, that comes at a time of intense demands on airline repair shops, already plagued by shortages of maintenance capacity and the grounding of hundreds of Airbus jets due to long waiting times for separate engine repairs or inspections.

Hundreds of the affected jets may also have to have hardware changed, threatening much longer waits, the sources said.

Some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air worldwide shortly after the Airbus announcement.

American Airlines and Hungary’s Wizz Air said they had already identified which of their aircraft would need the software fix. United Airlines said it was not impacted.

Trending Now

American, in a statement, said about 340 of its 480 A320 aircraft require the software replacement, and it expects the majority of those fixes to be “complete today and tomorrow,” with about two hours required for each plane.

There are around 11,300 A320-family aircraft in operation, including 6,440 of the core A320 model, which first flew in 1987.

The setback appears to beamong the largest mass recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model.

The A320 was the first mainstream jetliner to introduce fly-by-wire computer controls.

The bulletin seen by Reuters traced the problem to a flight system called ELAC (Elevator and Aileron Computer), which sends commands from the pilot’s side-stick to elevators at the rear. These in turn control the aircraft’s pitch or nose angle.

The computer’s manufacturer, France’s Thales said in response to a Reuters query that the computer complies with Airbus specifications and the functionality in question is supported by software that is not under Thales’ responsibility.