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op00to parent
Solar radiation like solar wind, or sunlight? They don’t say.
mr_toad
“Analysis of a recent event”

I presume they mean a Coronal Mass Ejection.

bparsons
There was a very large CME ten days ago. The NOAA scale had predicted a high likelihood of disruptions, and had specifically suggested that spacecraft and high altitude aircraft could be impacted.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

https://kauai.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/CMEscoreboard/prediction/de...

glaucon
FWIW the "industry sources say" line on the incident is that it occurred on 30 October[1], so further back than ten days ago but of course there may have been other CME incidents at that time.

The European Agency Aviation Safety Agency [2] instruction describes the characteristics of the incident but not the date.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/28/airbus-issu...

[2] https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/2025-0268-E

fwip
I feel like the event was something that happened to a plane. That said, I wouldn't think sunlight would be penetrating to the chips running the plane.
dtagames
Gamma rays penetrate everything and have definitely been known to disrupt computer circuits.
fwip
Yes, which is why the solar flare scenario makes more sense.
awesome_dude
> The grounding of Airbus A320neo aircraft around the world can be traced back to an incident on a JetBlue flight operating a Cancun to New Jersey service on 30 October.

> At least 15 passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after a sudden drop in altitude on the flight from Mexico was forced to make an emergency landing in Florida, US aviation officials said at the time.

> The Thursday flight from Cancun was headed to Newark, New Jersey, when the altitude dropped, leading to the diversion to Tampa International Airport, the US Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

> Pilots reported “a flight control issue” and described injuries including a possible “laceration in the head,” according to air traffic audio recorded by LiveATC.net.

> Medical personnel met the passengers and crew on the ground at the airport. Between 15 and 20 people were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, said Vivian Shedd, a spokesperson for Tampa Fire Rescue.

> Pablo Rojas, a Miami-based attorney who specialises in aviation law, said a “flight control issue” indicated that the aircraft wasn't responding to the pilots.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/360903363/what-happened-fligh...

lostlogin
> At least 15 passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after a sudden drop in altitude on the flight from Mexico was forced to make an emergency landing in Florida, US aviation officials said at the time.

I’m surprised passengers are allowed to unbuckle for so much of each flight. You can get injured while buckled it, but that seems less common.

MaxfordAndSons
The flight attendants/safety card will tell you to stay buckled whenever seated, even if the seat belt sign is off, but many (most?) people will ignore that guidance and stay unbuckled for as long as they are technically allowed.

Only aviation professionals or recovering flight phobics like me who have watched every episode of Air Crash Investigation will take proactive safety measure of their own accord. To normies it's all just a pointless hassle.

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tyingq
Would guess "cosmic rays". Sun Microsystems had a batch of UltraSparc servers that were very sensitive to it, and it was a big issue.

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19095-01/sf4810.srvr/816-5053-10...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray

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