A fire onboard a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Chicago sparked an emergency investigation into electric wiring in 36 planes in the airline's fleet, it was revealed today.

Four more aircraft were found to have faulty or defective wiring systems, which controlled "mood lighting" in the first class bar areas, during the inspections last month.

Ireland's Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) ordered the international probe, involving their counterparts in the UK and France, after a jet carrying more than 150 people was forced to land at Shannon Airport when a fire broke out on January 11.

(Computerworld Australia) Linux will be a passenger in every seat on Qantas' Airbus A380s airplanes. All of the airline's superjumbos -- the first of which will commence flying next week -- will have their in-flight entertainment systems powered by the operating system.

The A380 is the first Qantas aircraft to utilize the Panasonic eX2 Inflight Entertainment System (IFE).

All of Panasonic's X Series of IFE systems run on Linux.

And Qantas is not limiting it to the A380s. The systems will be featured in Qantas' next batch of B737-800 aircraft, due in March 2009 and that will use the Panasonic eFX system, for both its business- and economy-class customers; its B787 or Dreamliner aircraft also due next year; and on some of its older but soon-to-be revamped B767-300 fleet.