Wed, Nov 21, 2018
Replaced Two Malfunctioning Units In The Weeks Prior To Lion Air Accident
Southwest Airlines replaced two malfunctioning flight-control sensors on Boeing 737 MAX airplanes in the weeks prior to the Lion Air Flight 610 accident in October.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to maintenance records obtained by the paper, the sensors were the same type as the devices that are the focus of the accident. The maintenance summary documents indicate that both discrepancies involved 737 MAX 8 airplanes, the same type as the aircraft that went down in the ocean off the coast of Indonesia resulting in the fatal injury of all 189 people on board.
The document shows that the sensors, or related hardware, needed to be replaced. It further indicates that pilots reported that they were unable to engage autothrottle settings on the airplanes.
A spokeswoman for Southwest said that the sensors did not fail but were replaced as a precautionary measure as part of a troubleshooting process. At least one was repaired, she said.
But the spokeswoman also said that the Southwest airplanes did not experience a situation similar to the issue described in Boeing's service bulletin, which warned of the potential for incorrect angle-of-attack data to be transmitted from the sensors to flight-control computers.
The Southwest incidents did not lead to the declaration of an emergency on either flight. One was noted on October 9th in Baltimore, and the other was written up in Houston on October 21, according to the documents.
The Wall Street Journal reports that neither Boeing or the FAA had any immediate comments on the Southwest maintenance documents.
(Image from file)
More News
Aviation Governance Secured...At Least For a While The National Business Aviation Association similarly applauded the passage of the FAA's recent reauthorization, contentedly recou>[...]
Emphasis On Growing The Future of Aviation Through Concentration on 'AFFORDABLE FLYERS' It's been a number of years since the Latest Edition of Jim Campbell's HUGE SportPlane Resou>[...]
Amazilia Aerospace GmbH, Develops Digital Flight Control, Flight Guidance And Vehicle Management Systems Textron eAviation has acquired substantially all the assets of Amazilia Aer>[...]
Honeywell's Primus Brings New Tools and Niceties for Hawker Operators Hawker 4000 business jet operators have a new installation on the table, now that the FAA has granted an STC f>[...]
Company Celebrates Niche-but-Important Advancement in Industry Standards Echodyne has announced full integration of its proprietary 'EchoFlight' radar into the e American Aerospace>[...]