Washington: The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) necessitating the immediate software replacement or modification for specific Airbus A319 and A320/321 models. This directive is effective immediately, as announced by the FAA in an official statement.
According to Anadolu Agency, the FAA's directive mandates operators to replace or modify the software controlling the aircraft's elevator ailerons. The work must be completed before the aircraft can resume flights by early Sunday local time. The directive also strictly prohibits the installation of the affected software on any aircraft.
The FAA's decision follows a similar directive previously issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, acknowledged a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in service that could be affected by this issue.
The emergency update follows an incident on October 30, when a JetBlue flight traveling from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey, experienced flight control difficulties. The aircraft descended 100 feet in seven seconds and had to be diverted to Tampa, Florida, according to preliminary data from Flightradar24.
Airbus had previously issued a precautionary software update for its A320 family after discovering that intense solar radiation could potentially corrupt data critical to flight-control functions.