There are some exceptions to this: Air Force One and most military planes are wired differently so they don't short out as much as passenger planes. So, unless the same military grade technology is built into all passenger planes too which is much more expensive to do, just expect one day a large enough solar flare or a nuclear blast up to 200 miles high in the sky to make all passenger planes fall out of the sky at once.
This is not an IF this is only a When by the way. (The Solar Flare part of this). This would likely hit only one side of the planet unless the flare was a long enough event to fry the whole planet in a 24 hours period which I think is pretty unlikely. But, the last event this strong was the 1859 Carrington Event.
- The Solar storm of 1859—known as the Carrington Event—was a powerful geomagnetic solar storm during solar cycle 10 (1855–1867). A solar coronal mass ...
- Mar 4, 2011 ... If this solar cycle produces a flare like the 1859 Carrington Event, we may face trillions in damages and year-long blackouts, experts say.
- Mar 14, 2012 ... The solar storm that hit Earth last Thursday delivered only a glancing blow, but in 1859 the planet wasn't so lucky.
