DGCA has ordered urgent safety modifications on Airbus A320-family aircraft operating in India, temporarily grounding affected jets until critical software and, in some cases, hardware updates are completed to protect flight‑control systems from a newly identified risk.
What triggered the DGCA order
The urgent action stems from a global safety alert after analysis of a recent A320 incident showed that intense solar radiation could corrupt data feeding critical flight‑control computers. In that event, an A320 reportedly experienced an abrupt, uncommand pitch change, prompting Airbus and regulators to treat the software vulnerability as a flight‑critical issue rather than a minor glitch.
Following Airbus’ internal investigation, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive for the A320 family, instructing operators to apply specific software protections to the flight‑control system. Airbus followed this with an Alert Operators Transmission (AOT), formally notifying airlines worldwide that thousands of A320‑family aircraft required urgent inspection and modification.
Scope: which A320 flights are hit
DGCA’s directive covers the full Airbus A320 family in India: A318, A319, A320 and A321, including both older “ceo” and newer “neo” variants. In India, this mainly affects the narrow‑body fleets of IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express, which together operate more than 330–350 aircraft in this category.
DGCA data indicates that 338 A320‑family aircraft flown by Indian carriers require the rectification action, making this one of the largest single‑type safety interventions in Indian aviation history. Globally, Airbus has identified around 6,000 A320‑family jets that may be affected by the software vulnerability, meaning more than half of the worldwide A320 fleet is touched by the recall.
The core technical problem
At the heart of the issue is the behaviour of the A320‑family flight‑control computers when exposed to rare but intense bursts of solar radiation. Airbus’ analysis found that under specific, unlikely conditions, high‑energy radiation could corrupt data used by the electronic flight‑control units, creating the potential for unexpected pitch or control‑surface commands.
To address this, Airbus developed a software update for the relevant flight‑control computers (including units such as ELAC in some configurations), adding additional checks, protections and fault‑handling logic. For a smaller subset of aircraft with specific part‑number combinations, operators must also perform hardware inspections or replace certain processing modules to meet the new safety standard.
What the DGCA mandatory modification orders say
DGCA has issued a Mandatory Modification and accompanying Airworthiness Directive directing all Indian operators of A318, A319, A320 and A321 aircraft to complete the specified inspections and software/hardware upgrades before these planes can return to commercial service. The order clearly states that no person may operate an affected aircraft unless it complies with the required modification and any applicable international airworthiness directives.
The directive classifies the action as mandatory for “continued safe operation”, emphasizing that the risk, while precautionary, is serious enough to demand full compliance under tight timelines. Operators are instructed to update their mandatory modification lists and maintenance records to reflect completion of the work, and they must not schedule affected aircraft for flights until those entries are verified.
Impact on airlines and passengers
Because hundreds of aircraft require grounding for 2–3 days each to complete the software update and any associated checks, airlines face significant scheduling pressure. IndiGo and Air India have both warned of possible delays, minor cancellations or rescheduling across domestic and some international routes as they rotate aircraft through maintenance and shuffle capacity.
However, airlines and DGCA stress that safety remains non‑negotiable and that operational disruption is a necessary trade‑off to remove a low‑probability but high‑consequence risk from the system. Regulators also highlight that more than half of the affected Indian A320‑family aircraft have already received the software fix, with full completion targeted within a narrow window to restore normal schedules quickly.
How the modification is carried out
For most aircraft, the primary task is to load the new, Airbus‑provided software package into the flight‑control computers using standard maintenance tools in a hangar or approved line‑maintenance environment. After installation, engineers perform built‑in tests and functional checks to ensure the updated system behaves correctly, and they record compliance against the Airbus AOT and EASA/DGCA directives in official logs.
Where required, technicians also visually inspect specific hardware units or replace designated components, such as certain control‑computer cards, to meet the new configuration standard. Only once these steps are completed, signed off by licensed engineers and entered into maintenance records, can the aircraft be released back to flight operations.
Safety context for A320 flights
The Airbus A320 family is one of the most widely used and statistically safest commercial jet types in the world, logging millions of flight hours across thousands of aircraft. The current modification drive reflects the layered safety approach in modern aviation: a single, well‑analyzed incident can trigger global corrective action long before patterns of accidents emerge.
Regulators underline that there has been no systemic wave of accidents linked to this issue; the directive is designed to close a vulnerability before it can contribute to a serious event. By grounding non‑compliant aircraft and insisting on documented completion of updates, DGCA aims to ensure that every A320‑family flight in Indian airspace continues to meet the highest, updated safety benchmarks.
What this means for future A320 operations
Once all required modifications are completed, A320‑family operations are expected to normalize, albeit with airlines temporarily adjusting fleets and frequencies to recover from the disruption. The episode is likely to accelerate digital monitoring, software governance and radiation‑effects analysis across the global fleet, as manufacturers and regulators build more resilience into fly‑by‑wire control architectures.
For passengers, the key takeaway is that short‑term inconvenience now is directly tied to long‑term safety; the A320 flights they board after this campaign will have additional layers of protection built into their flight‑control logic. In effect, DGCA’s urgent modification order turns a single high‑altitude scare into a comprehensive upgrade of one of the world’s most important workhorse aircraft families.