According to the Guardian, flights were delayed and canceled around the world after Airbus ordered a refurbishment of 6,000 A320 series aircraft.
The company said it was taking the action after “an analysis of recent events involving A320 family aircraft revealed that intense solar radiation can corrupt data critical to flight control functionality.”
Citing industry sources, Reuters reported that the incident occurred on Oct. 30 on a JetBlue flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, when the plane suddenly lost altitude and had to make an emergency landing in Tampa.
According to reports, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued an emergency airworthiness directive requiring affected aircraft to revert to previous software before they can fly again. Airbus says a smaller subset will require hardware changes.