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Flights disrupted after Airbus discovers intense sun radiation could impact flight control data (www.bbc.com)
submitted 9 months ago* by to c/tech@programming.dev
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If anyone has an article with more technical details on what the solar radiation did, and how they're going to patch it, I'd like to read about it :)

Airbus said it discovered the issue after an investigation into an incident in which a plane flying between the US and Mexico suddenly lost altitude in October.

The JetBlue Airways flight made an emergency landing in Florida after at least 15 people were injured.

The problem identified with A320 aircrafts relates to a piece of computing software which calculates a plane's elevation.

Airbus discovered that, at high altitudes, its data could be corrupted by intense radiation released periodically by the Sun.

The A320 family are what is known as "fly by wire" planes. This means there is no direct mechanical link between the controls in the cockpit and the parts of the aircraft that actually govern flight, with the pilot's actions processed by a computer.

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[–] 8 points 9 months ago (6 children)

There's other radiation in solar radiation than just light. The most harmful stuff doesn't really reach the earth's surface, but you're exposed to higher radiation amounts when flying, same applies to any electronics on board an aircraft. That's why you will usually find multiple flight control computers that have to agree on their calculations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight-time_equivalent_dose

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    I mean its all still just the same thing as "light" tho, its just not the kind thats visible to the human eye. Its all electromagnetic radiation in the end.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    The maths and physics are the same, the impact is not. It's about energy and how well you can shield against it. Shielding against visible light is simple, thin cardboard is probably enough, the aluminium frame of an aircraft is more than sufficient and the plastic or ceramic packaging of a microcontroller too. Shielding against gamma radiation is hard, you'll need something like a thick layer of lead, and even then every once in a while a photon might get through.

    Edit: The incident that caused this grounding was a solar flare, so not just some visible light.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    The different wavelengths don't travel through the atmosphere equally though, that's why you see red light on the horizon in the morning and evening

    But you're really clever, from your snarky comments, so I guess you already knew that

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    :)

    What my original comment meant is that it seems odd that the people that get payed billions to build airplanes havent considered this problem.

    Cosmic radiation causing bit flips is super old knowledge and one of the reasons why ECC memory exists. I dont know if thats what happened here but if it is then its an embarrassing failure.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    I would guess flares are getting more common and more powerful, and the protection was projected for less intensity without enough overhead.

    Makes me wonder how big is protective capacity on the space station and satellites, but they are likely built with more security considerations than budget considerations

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