{"id":290065,"date":"2025-11-29T17:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290065\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T17:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:44:09","slug":"why-extreme-space-weather-grounded-airbus-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/290065\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘extreme space weather’ grounded Airbus flights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tUp to 6,000 Airbus planes will be grounded in order to be updated due to an issue relating to solar radiation\u00a0\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

When JetBlue Flight 1230 suddenly lost altitude during its journey from Cancun, Mexico, to New Jersey in the US last month, passengers described a terrifying experience.<\/p>\n

There was no turbulence beforehand, the seatbelt signs had not been turned on, the flight had been going smoothly when the plane started to drop out of the sky without warning. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople literally flew into the air,\u201d one passenger wrote in an account shared on Reddit. <\/p>\n

\u201cA drink cart even hit a young child \u2013 it was terrifying, people screaming, thinking we were going down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the pilot retained control of the aircraft and made an emergency diversion to Tampa Bay, Florida, where medics treated between 15 and 20 people for injuries. <\/p>\n

JetBlue initially said the Airbus A320 experienced a \u201cflight control issue\u201d but a full investigation would follow. <\/p>\n

That review has led to Airbus, one of the world\u2019s largest aircraft manufacturers, to order an urgent software update for all A320s which will ground around 6,000 planes. <\/p>\n

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued the instruction on Friday night as a \u201cprecautionary action\u201d while UK Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the impact on UK airlines should remain \u201climited\u201d.<\/p>\n

Solar chaos would cost \u00a31bn a day to UK economy<\/p>\n

It has been confirmed that solar radiation interfered with the aircraft\u2019s control system while it was cruising at high altitude. <\/p>\n

Extreme \u201cspace weather\u201d is a phenomenon that is still being understood by scientists \u2013 but experts in the field are warning it poses an increasing level of risk.<\/p>\n

The i Paper revealed earlier this year how the UK is leading a \u00a3700m mission into deep space to monitor solar weather<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The European Space Agency\u2019s Vigil satellite will be the world\u2019s first asset to permanently monitor the Sun from a unique vantage point and deliver early warnings of incoming solar storms.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Vigil satellite will monitor the Sun from a unique vantage point in deep space (Image: European Space Agency)<\/p>\n

Flares and eruptions from the Sun deliver powerful bursts of energy that can create a major disturbance in the Earth\u2019s magnetic field, knocking out critical space infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Insurance firm Lloyds recently estimated that an extreme solar event could lead to worldwide chaos with grounded flights, silent phones, and frozen financial networks, wiping as much as $2.4trn (\u00a31.7trn) from global GDP over five years.<\/p>\n

The UK Government estimates losing just its own space assets would cost \u00a31bn a day to the economy.<\/p>\n

The hope is that Vigil will be able to give countries an early-warning system so they can take action to prevent the kind of frightening incident on the JetBlue flight. <\/p>\n

Russia and China could take advantage of storms<\/p>\n

The impact of solar storms \u2013 which scientists believe are set to become more frequent and intense in the coming decades \u2013 could be even more far-reaching, however.<\/p>\n

They can also jam the GPS and radar systems used in defence systems.<\/p>\n

It is feared that if countries such as Russia <\/a>and China <\/a>have advance knowledge of when solar storms are about to hit the Earth\u2019s atmosphere they could take advantage and launch an attack while Western powers are effectively defenceless.<\/p>\n

Solar storms can travel towards Earth at speeds of up to 3,000kph, leaving authorities as little as 12 hours to prepare.<\/p>\n

A senior space industry source said that currently it is believed no military power has the capability to accurately predict when solar events could disrupt defence systems.<\/p>\n

However, it is believed solar flares may have played a role in the sinking of a Russian warship during the conflict with Ukraine <\/a>in 2022 by leaving its radar unable to track incoming missiles.<\/p>\n

Nations including the US, China<\/a> and Russia<\/a> are now in a race to have a better understanding of solar storms and how they could give them a military advantage, the source said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Up to 6,000 Airbus planes will be grounded in order to be updated due to an issue relating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[82773,90,1685,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-290065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-airbus","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-solar-system","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}