In this paper, a data‐based approach for the design of structured residual subsets for the robust isolation of sensor faults is proposed. Linear regression models are employed to estimate faulty signals and to build a set of primary residuals. L1‐regularized least squares estimation is used to identify model parameters and to enforce sparsity of the solutions by increasing the regularization weight. In this way, it is possible to generate a set of residuals generators with different fault sensitivity. Then, a residual selection procedure based on fault sensitivity maximization is proposed to extract a minimum size subset of structured residuals that allows for isolation of the faulty sensor. To overcome modelling uncertainty, a robust recursive Bayesian Filter has been employed to process, online, the distance of the residuals from nominal fault directions, providing a fault probability for each sensor. The proposed method has been validated by designing and testing a fault isolation scheme for six aircraft sensors using multi‐flight experimental data of a P92 Tecnam aircraft.