Almost ONE THOUSAND jets grounded after Airbus horror plunge fault

Hundreds of Airbus planes remain grounded over the holiday weekend as the manufacturer scrambles to fix an urgent technical issue thought to have caused a jet to plunge out of the sky.

The horror incident last month aboard a JetBlue flight was attributed to a computer code error within Airbus's A320 planes.

Thousands of jets were grounded on Friday as Airbus raced to issue a software update for 6,000 of its A320 planes with most expected to be complete on Saturday.

However, around 900 older planes in the Airbus fleet require an entirely new computer, prompting further delays.

The timeline for that replacement is currently unknown.

American Airlines currently still has four planes out of its 209 aircraft that were affected to update the software. 

United Airlines told the Daily Mail: 'There will be no impact to our operation today' but did not state if any of its fleet were among the 900 impacted.

The issue with A320 planes was identified after a JetBlue plane traveling from Cancun, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey suddenly suffered an uncontrolled drop in altitude of thousands of feet on October 30.

The drop caused at least 15 injuries and forced it to make an emergency landing. 

US companies, Delta, JetBlue, and United, have large A320-family fleets. Delta has roughly 315, but less than 50 were affected by the software update, a spokesperson told the Daily Mail on Saturday. United has 122 in that Airbus family. 

American Airlines holds the largest A320 fleet in the world with 480 total. Only 209 were affected by the software update. 

It is unclear if any of the companies have older planes that need a complete computer replacement. The Daily Mail has contacted JetBlue, Delta, and Spirit for an update on their fleets. 

French Transport Minister, Philippe Tabarot, said the updates went 'very smoothly' for more than 5,000 planes and less than a 100 need updated still. 

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury apologized to passengers for the inconvenience, which fell over one of the busiest travel weekends in the US. 

'I want to sincerely apologize to our airline customers and passengers who are impacted now. But we consider that nothing is more important than safety when people fly on one of our Airbus Aircraft - like millions do every day,' he wrote on LinkedIn on Saturday. 

'Our teams are working around the clock to support our operators and ensure these updates are deployed as swiftly as possible to get planes back in the sky and resume normal operations, with the safety assurance you expect from Airbus.' 

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AirAsia, which also owns a large fleet of Airbus planes, said it aimed to have the update - which reverts back to an old software version - completely within 48 hours. 

European airline Wizz Air was able to complete the updates overnight, and India's IndiGo completed 184 out of 200 planes. Air India has done 69 or 113, according to Reuters. 

JetStar, an Australian budget airline, said some of its flights would be affected by the update. 

Pope Leo was also affected by the chaos. A technician was jetted to Istanbul to make sure the plane carrying him tomorrow is safe.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said today that ITA Airways was flying the necessary component and a technician to install it to Istanbul. 

US company, Southwest Airlines, is the only carrier that is safe from the recall because its entire fleet is composed entirely of Boeing 737 aircraft. 

The A320 family of planes also includes smaller A319 and larger A321 models. Most newer jets will only require a software update, but older planes will need to have an onboard computer replaced.