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A faulty sensor on a Lion Air 737 Max that’s been linked to the jetliner’s deadly crash last October and a harrowing ride the previous day was repaired in a US aircraft maintenance facility before the tragedy, according to investigative documents. Accident investigators in Indonesia, home of Lion Air, and the US have been examining the work that a Florida repair shop previously performed on the so-called angle-of-attack sensor, according to briefing documents prepared for Indonesia’s parliament. Erroneous signals from that sensor triggered the repeated nose-down movements on the Oct. 29 flight that pilots struggled with until the jet plunged into the Java Sea. Documents obtained by Bloomberg show the repair station XTRA Aerospace Inc. in Miramar, Florida, had worked on the sensor. It was later installed on the Lion Air plane on Oct. 28 in Bali, after pilots had reported problems with instruments displaying speed and altitude. There’s no indication the Florida shop did maintenance on the Ethiopian jet’s device. The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee is seeking data “from repair station in Florida” where the unit was worked on, the investigative agency said in a briefing to parliament last November and contained in a presentation. Nurcahyo Utomo, lead investigator at the Indonesia NTSC, said the US NTSB was conducting a review of the work performed on the sensor, but hasn’t yet reported back on its findings.<br/>

Whistleblowers have told the Senate Commerce Committee that safety inspectors at the FAA, including those involved with approvals for the Boeing 737 Max, lacked proper training and certifications, according to the panel’s chairman. “Multiple whistleblowers” provided the committee with information alleging that “numerous FAA employees, including those involved in the Aircraft Evaluation Group for the Boeing 737 MAX, had not received proper training and valid certifications,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said in a letter to the FAA’s Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell Tuesday. Those claims and two 737 Max crashes since October that have killed 346 people prompted Wicker to launch an investigation into potential connections between training and certification shortcomings and the FAA’s evaluation of the airliner, he said in his letter, which was released by the committee Tuesday. “As the FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell stated in last week’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing, ‘In our quest for continuous safety improvement, the FAA welcomes external review of our systems, processes, and recommendations,’” FAA spokesman Gregory Martin said. <br/>

A landmark order from China for 300 Airbus jets signed during a state visit last week was bolstered by repeat announcements of dozens of existing deals and advance approval for deals that have yet to be struck, two people familiar with the matter said. Echoing an umbrella order for 300 Boeing jets awarded during a visit to Beijing by US President Donald Trump in 2017, the headline figure for the new “framework order” for European jets was partly driven by political considerations, the people said. The Airbus deal would have been worth some $35b at list prices but the amount of new business is lower, they added. Duplicate announcements included a deal for 10 A350 aircraft to an unnamed buyer, which represents a repeat announcement of an order for 10 jets by Sichuan Airlines at an air show last year. The disclosure takes some of the shine off an announcement widely regarded as the economic highlight of a trip to Europe by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Nonetheless the deal marked a return to the aircraft market by China’s state buying agency after a pause of over a year during global trade tensions. The overall figure of 300 was introduced late in the process and after Xi’s visit was underway, although plane orders typically take months to negotiate, one of the people said. Airbus declined to comment on detailed orders but left open the possibility that the large total contained gaps.<br/>

Airspace restrictions in Pakistan due to simmering tensions with India have caused airfares to spike for Afghans who travel for medical treatment, education and business. Pakistan closed its airspace in February after a suicide bomber from Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM) attacked a convoy in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Following the attack, both countries carried out aerial bombing missions on each other’s soil and their warplanes also fought a dogfight over Kashmir. The restrictions have forced commercial and passenger flights that connect Afghanistan with India, a major trading partner, to double back west through Iranian airspace and then pass south of Pakistan into India. The detour extends what is usually a two-and-a-half-hour Kabul-New Delhi flight into a five-hour trip, increasing fuel costs for airlines and fares for passengers. Many Afghans seek what they see as superior medical care and university education in India. Most commercial air traffic has resumed normal operations in Pakistan and major airports have opened but some international routes that normally cross Pakistani airspace remain closed. An official at Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said on Tuesday that airspace remained partially closed but a decision would be made at 6 p.m. (1300 GMT) about whether to re-open. He declined to provide details about which routes were affected. On Tuesday, Afghanistan-based airline Kam Air and Ariana Afghan Airlines still offered direct flights to India, spokesmen for the companies said.<br/>

A satellite air traffic surveillance system capable of tracking aircraft anywhere around the planet has been launched. The system, which will start by tracking planes over the North Atlantic, has been developed to fill the holes in radar coverage – some 70% of global airspace – that became apparent following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 five years ago. UK and Canadian air traffic control services will be the first to try out the system. “For the first time in history, we can surveil all ADS-B-equipped aircraft anywhere on Earth,” said Don Thoma, CE of Aireon, the firm which has developed the new system. Automatic dependent surveillance broadcast, which is used in the US and other airspace, automatically determines a plane’s location by satellite and broadcasts it. Planes will now be able to update constantly anywhere on Earth, by using the 66 satellites in the Iridium satellite constellation, enabling real-time tracking worldwide. Most modern passenger jets – including the Boeing 777 of flight MH370 – are fitted with the transponders. The planes have until now broadcast their position every 10 to 15 minutes via satellite when flying over the ocean, with a single, short data transmission. Thoma said the new system would “radically optimise flight safety and efficiency”. As well as improving safety, tracking planes across ocean airspace that was previously invisible to controllers will allow airlines to fly more efficiently, Aireon said. It claimed that could save airlines up to US$300 and two tonnes of CO2 emissions on every transatlantic flight.<br/>

Vitaly Kamluk, a cybersecurity and malware expert, was returning from vacation on SIA in February when his wife noticed a small circle that looked like a camera lens along the lower edge of the video screen in the seat back. “It really looked like a camera to me, but you can never be sure,” Kamluk said. So he took a photo of the circle and tweeted it to the airline. He got a quick response from Singapore, which acknowledged that it was a camera but said it had been “disabled.” He also got plenty of attention on Twitter. Now, two senators have asked eight airlines based in the US to respond in the next few weeks to questions about the cameras, including whether the airlines have used them “to monitor passengers” and whether passengers have been “informed of this practice.” “I think it’s just outrageous,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, who sent the letter along with Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. “I don’t want a camera staring at me, and I don’t think most passengers do.” Of the carriers that received the letter, at least three do not have any kind of embedded seat back screen. According to the Airline Passenger Experience Association, an airline trade group, the American carriers that do have cameras have not made them operational. The high-definition cameras and the microphones that go with them are part of a new generation of systems offered by Panasonic and Thales, the two biggest airline entertainment system manufacturers. David Bartlett, CTO for Panasonic, said the devices allowed passengers to have the same kind of interactive technology in the sky that they use on the ground. Bartlett gave a number of potential uses for the cameras, including seat-to-seat or seat-to-ground video chats, motion-activated control of movies, games and other options displayed on the screen and smart lighting that dims when the camera detects that the passenger is sleeping. Airlines, he said, could also create digitally branded frames so passengers could take selfies and share them on social media. Story has more background.<br/>