A retired Indian Air Force pilot has recreated the flight-control failure on an Airbus A320 simulator that led to one of the largest safety directives in the European planemaker's history. In a video filmed at the A320 simulator centre at DLF Mall in Noida, Captain (Retd) Ehsan Khalid walked through the exact sequence of faults that triggered Airbus's global grounding of thousands of A320-family aircraft.
In the clip, shared by news agency PTI, Khalid breaks down how a malfunction inside one of the aircraft's key flight-control computers can cause the jet to move without pilot input. “The problem that has been found with the software upgrade of 2024, that ELAC 2 is having a software problem,” he says, referring to the Elevator Aileron Computer. “The purpose of these computers are to give the correct control inputs, give an indication and also monitor faults. So they are in effect the brain and nervous system of the aircraft… When the pilot moves the control forward, it will cause the aircraft to pitch down… If it happens on its own, then there is a problem.”
Walking viewers through the simulator panel, he identifies the components involved. “It is the elevator and aileron computer system, computer number 1 and computer number 2… This is ELAC 1… and this is ELAC 2. These are the two computer interaction panels. ELAC 1 controls the rolling of the aircraft, and ELAC 2 controls the pitching. However, if one computer fails, the other can do both roles.” He notes that the fault lies specifically in the second unit. “ELAC 2… is having a software problem… They are in effect the brain and nervous system of the aircraft.”
What Triggered Airbus's Directive
This came after the real-world failure that led Airbus to instruct operators to ground more than 6,000 A320-family aircraft.
The directive was issued after an incident involving a JetBlue A320 in October, when the aircraft abruptly pitched nose-down without any input from the pilots. The flight diverted to Tampa, and investigators later found that data corruption inside the ELAC 2 computer had caused the unexpected manoeuvre.
Airbus engineers subsequently linked the issue to intense solar radiation, which can interfere with the software running on certain ELAC units at cruising altitudes. This interference can corrupt data pathways and prompt the aircraft to interpret erroneous values as valid control inputs.
How The Glitch Works
The A320 uses several backup computers to keep the aircraft stable, and the ELAC units are among the most important because they control how the plane pitches up or down and rolls left or right. The problem occurs when high levels of solar radiation interfere with the ELAC software. During strong solar activity, tiny charged particles can enter the aircraft's electronics and confuse the computer's data checks.
This is what happened in the JetBlue incident. The ELAC 2 computer received corrupted data and treated it as if the pilot had pushed the aircraft nose-down, even though no one touched the controls. The aircraft suddenly dropped altitude before the crew reacted and took back manual control.
Although such radiation spikes are rare, Airbus determined that the risk of an uncommanded movement was serious enough to require immediate action across the entire fleet.
