[twtw]

But they neglected maintenance when serious issues with the plane were apparent. The pilots of the flights prior to 610 noted that the two AoA sensor readings differed by ~20 degrees, and nearly aborted their flight before overriding the auto trim.

Flight 610 should never have taken off.

[Someone1234]

That's a misstatement of what occurred. The aircraft had a fault on the previous two flights and was repaired before the fatal flight.

> Flight 610 should never have taken off.

A repaired aircraft should not take off?

[twtw]

The preliminary report from the investigation of LNI610 disagrees with you: https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2018/20181029-0_B38M_PK-...

The AoA attack sensor was replaced prior to flight LNI043 (he flight prior to 610), in which the pilots declared pan-pan and had to manually override the auto trim systems (which include MCAS). Between 043 and 610, there was further maintenance that included flushing the pilot valves and cleaning electrical connectors, but the AoA sensor was not replaced between 043 and 610.

An aircraft that was repaired followed by one flight in which the pilots declared abnormal operation and performed 3 non-normal checklists should probably not fly again until they figured out what happened, and the next flight should definitely be aware of the incident on the flight prior. 043 faced and overcame the exact same malfunction as 610 - to me that indicates a clear failure. If you keep flying an aircraft that malfunctions on each flight, you're pressing your luck.

[salawat]

Does repaired in this context also include a successful in-flight test?

At some point, the complexity of system integrations requires that you do something more than bare minimum component retesting.