Aviation investigators are looking into two American companies that handled the sensor at the center of the Lion Air crash last year, according to multiple sources familiar with the case. The sensor, a vane located on the front of the Boeing 737 Max model known as the angle-of-attack (AoA) sensor, fed incorrect data to the flight control system of the Lion Air plane, activating an anti-stall software on the aircraft that repeatedly pitched the plane downward before its crash into the Java Sea, killing 189 people, Indonesian authorities have said. On Thursday, Ethiopian aviation authorities said that one of the AoA sensors on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed last month was also producing faulty data, activating the same automatic flight control system that pilots battled before that plane's crash, which killed 157 people. The Indonesian and Ethiopian investigators have only both released preliminary reports, and they do not specify a cause for the crashes. The sensor on the Lion Air flight had been repaired by Xtra Aerospace, a company in Miramar, Florida, in 2017, before it was returned to Lion Air and later installed on the doomed flight, according to Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator with Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee. The part sat in storage with the airline until it was put on the Lion Air plane the day before it crashed, Utomo said. The US National Transportation Safety Board, which is assisting Indonesian authorities in the Lion Air investigation, is looking into work done on the sensor at the company in the aftermath of the crash at the request of the Indonesian aviation authority, according to Utomo.<br/>
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Kenya briefly closed one departure terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi after a fire sparked by a baggage system malfunction forced authorities to evacuate passengers and staff, the state-run airports operator said on Thursday. Operations at the terminal resumed shortly before midday local time, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) said. There were no injuries in the incident, which occurred just before midnight on Wednesday at what is the main gateway into the East African country, the KAA said. “All passengers and staff at the terminal were evacuated safely and the fire contained by the airport’s fire team,” it said. The KAA did not say whether any flights had been disrupted. Flight operations at the affected terminal had been moved to an adjacent terminal while authorities worked to reopen it, the KAA said. Apart from the national carrier, Kenya Airways, which uses Jomo Kenyatta as its hub, the airport also serves airlines including Emirates, Turkish Airways, British Airways and Ethiopian Airlines.<br/>
Malaysian aviation regulators approved 53 requests for air traffic rights allocations in the first quarter, with AirAsia accounting for nearly half of the applications. The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) said it approved all applications it received from Malaysian carriers for the three months through March 31, although one was only partially approved. The agency did not disclose which route or airline was covered by the partial approval. AirAsia submitted 26 of the 53 applications, MAVCOM said. The next highest number came from Malindo Air, with 15. The air traffic rights were granted for 17 domestic routes, 13 to Southeast Asian destinations, 11 to China, five to Australasia, two to India and five to other Asian destinations. About half of the routes were from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, with the remainder from other Malaysian airports. The total approvals for the full year 2018 was 205, of which 98 were for AirAsia.<br/>
Airbus suffered more cancellations than orders by end-March, leaving the European company with a bleak Q1 after its five-year winning streak in the race for jetliner orders against Boeing ended last year. Airbus said on Thursday it had won 62 gross orders during the first three months of 2019 but some 120 cancellations left it with a negative net order figure of 58. Deliveries stood at 162 including 134 single aisle planes and 22 A350s. Earlier this month, Colombian airline Avianca canceled an order of 17 Airbus A320 Neo aircraft and delayed deliveries on 35 others, according to a securities filing.<br/>