Plane Bound for New Jersey Plunges Thousands of Feet After Possible Strike by Cosmic Rays from Other Galaxy, Investigators Say
A New Jersey-bound airplane that suddenly plunged thousands of feet in the air — sending 15 people to the hospital in October — was likely struck by cosmic rays from a star that exploded in another galaxy, according to space experts.
The JetBlue Airbus A320 flight was hit by a stream of high-energy particles from a distant supernova blast that traveled millions of years, according to Clive Dyer, a space and radiation expert from the University of Surrey who spoke to space.com
“Cosmic rays can interact with modern microelectronics and change the state of a circuit,” Dyer told the outlet. “They can cause a simple bit flip, like a zero to one or one to zero. They can mess up information and make things go wrong. But they can cause hardware failures too, when they induce a current in an electronic device and burn it out.”
The flight was headed from Cancun to Newark on Oct. 30 . . . Pilots regained control and made an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, but roughly 20 passengers suffered serious injuries, including bloody head wounds.
Airbus officials blamed the glitch this week on “intense solar radiation” from the sun interfering with the 20-year-old plane’s navigation computer. (Read more from “Plane Bound for New Jersey Plunges Thousands of Feet After Possible Strike by Cosmic Rays from Other Galaxy, Investigators Say” HERE)
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