Turbulence on New Jersey-bound flight that sent 15 people to hospital may have been caused by cosmic rays from space: professor
Turbulence on flight may have been caused by cosmic rays from space
- A JetBlue Airbus A320 flight from Cancun to Newark suddenly dropped thousands of feet, resulting in injuries to approximately 20 people, 15 of whom required hospitalisation.
- Airbus officials initially attributed the incident to 'intense solar radiation' interfering with the aircraft's navigation equipment.
- Clive Dyer, a space and radiation expert from the University of Surrey, proposed an alternative explanation: the plane may have been hit by high-energy cosmic rays from a supernova explosion.
- Dyer explained that these cosmic rays can disrupt modern microelectronics, causing 'bit flips' or even hardware failures in critical systems.
- He suggested that radiation levels from local solar events on the day were insufficient to cause such a malfunction and urged aircraft manufacturers to produce more robust electronics to withstand potential cosmic interference.