This repair facility is based in Florida and is being investigated by authorities in US and Indonesia.
The Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crash in October 2018 was linked to a faulty censor in the plane, which was apparently repaired in a US aircraft maintenance facility just before the unfortunate incident, according to a Bloomberg report.
Investigators based out of Indonesia and the US have examined the repair shop based in Florida where the faulty 'angle-of-attack' sensor was worked on. The sensor sent erroneous signals leading to repeated nose-down movements on the flight, which the pilots could not reverse and the plane ultimately plunged into the Java Sea. All 189 people on board were killed.
This crash, followed by Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crash on March 10, brought intense trouble for Boeing as the 737 Max planes were grounded worldwide.
The repair service in Florida has been asked report information to the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC). The US National Transportation Safety Board was also conducting a review on the facility, findings of which have not been published yet.
This sensor was manufactured by Rosemount Aerospace Inc, based in Minnesota. The preliminary report of Indonesia NTSC suggests that the sensor was not functional when the flight took off. The main function of these sensors is to show how the wind is flowing relative to where the nose of the plane is. It tells the pilots if the plane is going too steep.
The investigative agencies have checked to ensure that more faulty sensors were not supplied to other airlines. Other sensors on the flight were found to be operational.
Charles Horning, chairman of the Department of Aviation Maintenance Science at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said that even if the sensor was damaged in transit or improperly repaired, the anomaly should have been caught during installation on the plane.
