> Before next flight after the effective date of this AD, replace or modify each affected ELAC with a serviceable ELAC in accordance with the instructions of the AOT. > > A ferry flight (up to 3 Flight Cycles, non-ETOPS, no passengers) is permitted to position the aeroplane to a location where the replacement or modification can be accomplished.
That's a very limiting AD. The "before the next flight" part is unusual, ADs often have a limit to the next inspection or X flight hours or similar, not immediately.
https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_AD_2025_0268_E.pdf/EAD_2...
This was the incident that triggered the investigation:
https://avherald.com/h?article=52f1ffc3&opt=0
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/30/us/jetblue-flight-emergen...
List of Airbus A320 family operators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A320_family_ope...
Affected ELAC: Elevator aileron computer (ELAC) ELAC B L104
Serviceable ELAC: ELAC B L103+
https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/digital-transformation/...
Obviously there no direct connection here, but it seems that destabilizing perfectly working aircraft could be the product of a culture shift.
A culture shift following a fad in the last couple of years that caused "a regression" (whatever you mean by that) in an aircraft that was made years before, and that was designed years before again? How would that work? They can stop selling aircrafts if they have a time machine.
Apparently it has happened to an Airbus once before.
In practice, both approaches blend automation and pilot authority rather than strict philosophical extremes. And the practical difference at the controls is also not as extreme as some people think it is.
In fact, the only way to get into direct law on a fully functional plane is to start pulling circuit breakers for the (redundant) flight computers and inertial reference units.
From https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-11-ai...:
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.
100% for electronics operating at altitude. Also on the ground, but we mostly act like it doesn't happen and are usually ignorant of the root cause when it does.
I suggest trying to fly with a Geiger counter. At the cruise altitude you have something like 15-20x the normal background level, when flying over the pole it can rise to 30x.
It's actually not caused by the solar radiation, it's too weak to reach the flight level. It is caused by cosmic rays, and the solar activity modulates how much of the cosmic radiation reaches the lower levels of the atmosphere.
Radiation should be covered under normal safety, along with they already shield for it.
People often wrongly blame things on radiation, bit flips etc. when they don't know the real cause. A well known pattern.
There is a Hacker News item that was on high repeat where they eventually they solved the ~'cosmic radiation bug' as they first called it. Cannot remember the link.
It will not be true no matter what the, I know 'interesting' facts, 'I have a wiki link', crowd tell you. Real life is boring (and amazing). See Heisenbug's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46083560
> On the Qantas 72 flight (2008), the ATSB report showed the same power spike that upset the ADIRU also left tidy 1-word corruptions in the flight data recorder. Those aligned with the clock cycle, shared the same amplitude and were confined to single ARINC words. That is pretty much exactly the signature of a failing solid state relay or contactor on the shared avionics power bus (upstream of both FDR and fly by wire).
> Radation-driven bit flips would be Poisson distributed in time and energy. So that is one way to find out("Apply this very expensive special tape from (e.g.) 3M here and here.")