Airbus' explanation for a sudden, uncontrolled drop of a JetBlue flight is facing scrutiny from space and radiation experts.

The incident occurred on October 30, when a JetBlue Airbus traveling from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey suddenly lost altitude by thousands of feet, injuring at least 15 passengers. 

Airbus attributed the event to intense solar radiation interfering with the plane's flight control systems, prompting a rapid software update across more than 6,000 aircraft on Friday.

Now, Clive Dyer, a space and radiation specialist at the University of Surrey in the UK, suggested a cosmic ray, a high-energy particle traveling near the speed of light from a distant star, may have caused the disruption instead. 

On the other hand, solar radiation is the electromagnetic energy emitted by the sun, traveling to Earth as light waves.

Dyer told Space.com that solar radiation on the day of the flight was within normal levels and far too low to affect the aircraft.

'[Cosmic rays] can interact with modern microelectronics and change the state of a circuit,' Dyer said. 'They can cause a simple bit flip, like a 0 to 1 or 1 to 0, messing up information and making things go wrong. 

'They can even induce hardware failures when they generate a current in an electronic device and burn it out.'

The expert added that solar radiation reached dangerous levels in the atmosphere less than two weeks later, potentially explaining Airbus' urgency in issuing system updates.

JetBlue Flight 1230 - an Airbus 320 - departed Cancun International Airport in Mexico and was headed to New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport when its crew reported a flight control issue, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane then landed at around 2.19pm ET in Tampa, Florida.

JetBlue said the plane experienced a drop in altitude, and the 'flight was met by medical personnel who evaluated customers and crew members, and those needing additional care were transported to a local hospital.'

Flight data shows the plane took off, reached an altitude of 35,000 feet, which it maintained for about half an hour before descending at Tampa International Airport.

The plane was removed from service for inspection, and the airline said it will conduct a full investigation to determine the cause.

That investigation came to a close recently, with Airbus revealing its findings last week and grounding at least 6,000 A320 passenger jets. 

'Analysis of a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,' the company shared in a statement.

'Airbus has consequently identified a significant number of A320 Family aircraft currently in service that may be impacted.' 

When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle and explode as supernovas, they fling high-energy particles across the cosmos. 

These fast-moving protons, known as cosmic rays, continuously strike Earth, colliding with air molecules and producing a cascade of secondary particles, including muons, neutrons, and positrons. 

If one of these particles hits an aircraft's electronic system, it can disrupt operations in what scientists call a single-event upset, temporarily affecting sensors or onboard computers.

The sun can also unleash bursts of charged particles during solar flares, which are often far stronger than cosmic rays. 

Such solar events can significantly increase the likelihood of electronic glitches on aircraft.

Less than two weeks after the JetBlue emergency, a powerful solar flare sent elevated radiation through flight-level altitudes for several days, which likely influenced Airbus' decision to roll out a software update, even though, according to Dyer, radiation on the day of the incident itself was within normal limits.

'It's down to manufacturers to produce hardy electronics, especially in safety-critical units,' Dyer said. 

'A slight problem is that over 20 years, they've become complacent, because there have not been any [significant solar weather] events.'

The radiation expert has shown that cosmic rays have knocked out planes in the past.

In the 1980s, he worked on research into single-event upsets in satellites and later tested radiation monitoring equipment aboard the Concorde. He says that while such cosmic ray-induced glitches are uncommon, they have occurred before in aviation.

He pointed to a 2008 incident involving Qantas Flight 72 as a likely example. 

On that flight, an Airbus A330 suddenly dropped twice while cruising over the Pacific, briefly creating a sensation of weightlessness. Passengers were caught off guard, and many suffered significant injuries as the plane unexpectedly nosedived.