Radiation from space

An Airbus A320 aircraft in service with JetBlue. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Cosmic radiation, bit flipping, sudden drop and giant shutdown: Why was Airbus forced to ground more than 6,000 aircraft?

A rare bit-flipping incident in an A320 flight computer on a JetBlue flight has led to a global wave of emergency updates and hardware fixes for the A320 family, highlighting the vulnerability of microchips to high-altitude cosmic radiation.