DGCA Grounds A320 Aircraft: Solar Radiation Glitch Alert November 2025

Published on November 30, 2025

Imagine standing at the boarding gate, coffee in hand, ready for a holiday getaway or a crucial business meeting, only to watch the departure screen flicker from “On Time” to “Delayed” or “Cancelled.” For thousands of travelers across India this week, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario—it is the reality on the ground.

In a sweeping move that prioritizes safety over schedules, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued an immediate directive affecting the workhorse of Indian skies: the Airbus A320 family. Following a rare and somewhat sci-fi-sounding warning from Airbus and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Indian carriers have been ordered to temporarily ground specific aircraft to fix a critical software vulnerability linked to solar radiation.

While “solar flares” might sound like something out of a space movie, the risk they pose to modern avionics is very real. Here is everything you need to know about the grounding, the glitch, and what it means for your travel plans.

The “Ghost” in the Machine: What Happened?

The alarm bells started ringing after a startling incident on October 30, 2025, involving a JetBlue A320 flying from Cancun to Newark. The aircraft experienced a sudden, uncommanded “pitch-down” (nose dive) event. While the pilots regained control and the plane landed safely in Florida, the investigation revealed a terrifying culprit.

It wasn’t pilot error or mechanical failure. It was the sun.

Investigators found that intense solar radiation (charged particles from the sun) had corrupted data within the ELAC (Elevator Aileron Computer) unit. This is essentially the “digital brain” that controls the elevators on the tail and the ailerons on the wings—the parts that make the plane go up, down, and bank left or right.

When the solar particles hit the computer’s memory chips at high altitude, they caused a “bit flip”—changing a 0 to a 1 in the binary code. This tiny corruption confused the flight control logic, causing the plane to dive to “correct” a problem that didn’t exist.

The DGCA’s Immediate Response

Recognizing the severity of the risk, India’s aviation watchdog, the DGCA, didn’t wait. On November 29, 2025, they issued a mandatory directive: No affected aircraft flies until it is fixed.

The order impacts the Airbus A319, A320, and A321 models running a specific version of the ELAC software (standard L104). In India, this affects approximately 338 aircraft, primarily operated by IndiGo and the Air India Group (including Air India Express).

The directive is blunt: airlines must downgrade the software to a previous, stable version that is immune to this specific solar interference before the plane can take off again.

The Race Against Time: Airlines Scramble

For Indian carriers, this is a logistical nightmare, but one they are tackling with impressive speed. The fix isn’t a weeks-long engine overhaul; it’s a software patch that takes about 30 to 40 minutes per plane. However, doing this for hundreds of aircraft simultaneously is a massive challenge.

• IndiGo: As the operator of the largest A320 fleet, IndiGo has been hit hardest. With 200 aircraft affected, their engineering teams have been working through the night. As of the latest reports, they have successfully updated nearly 92% of their fleet, minimizing what could have been a catastrophic schedule collapse.
• Air India & Air India Express: The Tata-owned group has also mobilized its engineers round-the-clock. They reported completing updates on over 90% of their affected fleet within the first 24 hours.

While cancellations have been surprisingly minimal thanks to this rapid response, delays of 60 to 90 minutes have been reported as planes are pulled out of rotation for the update.

Why This Is Actually Good News

It is easy to get frustrated by a delay, but this event highlights the robustness of modern aviation safety. In the past, such a glitch might have gone undiagnosed until a tragedy occurred. Today, a single incident triggers a global safety net.

The fact that Airbus identified the root cause—solar radiation corruption—and that regulators like the DGCA acted instantly to ground the fleet before another incident occurred, is a testament to a system that works. It is the “safety first” philosophy in action.

What Travelers Should Do

If you are flying on an Indigo or Air India Airbus this week, don’t panic, but do prepare:

Check Your Status: Before leaving for the airport, check your flight status on the airline’s app. The situation is fluid as planes are cleared for service.

Update Contact Details: Ensure your phone number and email are updated in your booking so the airline can contact you if there is a last-minute swap.

Be Patient: The delay you are experiencing is literally the time it takes to ensure your plane’s computer doesn’t get confused by the sun. It is a delay worth waiting for.

The Bigger Picture: Aviation in the Age of Tech

This incident serves as a reminder of how high-tech modern flying has become. We are no longer just flying in metal tubes; we are flying in flying data centers. As aircraft become more dependent on complex code and susceptible to environmental factors like space weather, the maintenance of “digital hygiene” becomes just as important as checking the tires and the oil.

For now, the skies over India are getting safer, one software patch at a time. The A320 family remains one of the safest aircraft in history, and thanks to this quick intervention, it stays that way.