The Pope’s plane was also affected by a technical failure of Airbus

The plane carrying Pope Leo XIV, an Airbus A320 operated by ITA Airways, had to undergo a technical inspection after Airbus issued a global alert for a fault detected in the flight control system of this popular aircraft model. The company reported that nearly 6,000 A320 family aircraft have a vulnerability related to solar radiation, capable of affecting the software responsible for handling critical navigation data. As a preventive measure, Airbus ordered inspections and the replacement of a specific component — a flight control system monitor — or the application of a software update before midnight on Saturday. In the case of the papal plane, the intervention took place in Istanbul, a city where the pontiff was making a stopover. Airbus sent a specialized technician to carry out the replacement of the indicated component. The operation, according to company sources, was simple and was completed in a few hours, which allowed the aircraft to regain its operability without altering the Pope’s schedule. The technical alert arises after an incident that occurred in October, when an A320 had to make an emergency landing in the United States due to an anomaly attributed to this same fault. After that episode, Airbus decided to issue an international notice to all airlines operating this model to avoid major risks. Despite the magnitude of the measure and the thousands of aircraft involved, technicians assure that the correction is quick and does not compromise the safety of flights that have already been inspected and updated. In the Vatican, for their part, they confirmed that the Pope’s itinerary continues as normal.