Source : THE AGE NEWS
By Chris Zappone
A second Jetstar flight has been cancelled after a fault in its navigation system, with official meteorologists ruling out ‘solar flares events’ as the prime culprit for the malfunction.
A Brisbane to Bali flight was scrapped on Thursday after disturbances to its Global Positioning System (GPS) prevented the flight from taking off, Jetstar confirmed.
The disruption follows an earlier cancellation of a flight from Melbourne to Bali on Wednesday, as well as a number of delays, lasting for hours, that affected other flights at the Qantas-owned economy airline.
Jetstar aircraft at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.Credit: The Age/Chris Zappone
The GPS fault also caused subsequent delays of Jetstar flights to Bali, Fiji and Hobart from Australia’s east coast on Thursday.
The spate of difficulties comes days after the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a warning about solar flare activity, raising the possibility that electromagnetic interference could affect aviation communication and navigation.
However, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has confirmed there were no solar flare events or space weather conditions that would cause such malfunctions in recent days.
The Jetstar aircraft received a message “requiring the [GPS] system to be reset before the flight departs”, a spokesperson for the airline said, which caused “a small number of disruptions to flights”.
“Engineers have inspected the aircraft and have determined the multiple aircraft GPS systems continue to operate and transmit signals,” Jetstar said.
“There has been minimal impact to our operation, and we thank our customers for their patience if they have experienced any delays while engineers conduct system resets.”
No other Qantas-owned aircraft were affected. A spokesperson for Virgin Australia said no similar issues had been reported with its aircraft.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre had issued a warning for high-frequency radio communications for the period May 21-23, forecasting R0-R1 radio blackout activity from solar flares over these days.
“According to the Australian Space Weather Alert System, R1 levels are considered likely to produce only minor degradations in HF radio communications during daylight hours.”
“Over the period of 21-22 May, there were no solar flare events or space weather conditions that would likely lead to any significant technological impacts.”
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) was equally non-committal about the cause of the faults.
CASA said it was “aware of the reported GPS navigation disruptions affecting several Jetstar flights”.
“In this instance, it appears the airline’s safety systems worked as intended, with flights delayed until the issue was resolved.”
The exact cause of the system fault remains unconfirmed.
On May 20, the NOAA issued a warning about solar flare activity, saying it “can cause interference for sensitive receivers including radar, GPS, and satellite communications”.
While all the Jetstar planes involved were Airbus A320 Neos and A321 Neos, which are among the newest in the airline’s fleet, the GPS fault has reportedly also occurred on planes globally, including Boeing.
A solar storm “is a sudden explosion of particles, energy, magnetic fields, and material blasted into the solar system by the Sun,” according to NASA.
“When directed toward Earth, a solar storm can create a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field, called a geomagnetic storm, that can produce effects such as radio blackouts, power outages, and beautiful auroras.”
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