Spanish CadenaSer is reporting some info which might be interesting. They claim it comes from the plane's maintenance log.
The article is not very clear on certain points (i.e, aileron vs flaps and slats) and I have the impression that the author of the article has limited, if any, aeronautical knowledge. Any horizontally moving surface has often been called simply an 'aileron' (alerón) in the Spanish press lately. Nevertheless, I have translated the text as precisely as possible.
Here an excerpt (the most interesting/newsworthy for this discussion) of the article:
"Spanair Plane Had Two Faults In The Aileron System Days Before The Accident
The first fault was detected in Palma de Mallorca on the 9th of August and repaired right there. The 'reporter' (log?) of the pilot states 'Auto-slat fails when 11 degrees of flaps selected'.
The technicians of the company checked the problem and established that 'the stall-system has been reset various times, the test performed OK. Slats and Flaps revised several times, the fault does not appear'.
The second (fault) ocurred 2 days before the accident and was repaired by Spanair's technicians in Madrid. The pilot informed that the auto-slat system failed when the slats were extended. The technicians resolved it and annotated 'test performed OK, various functions of the flaps and slats, they are OK, impossible to repeat the fault'.
The report of the Guardia Civil which covers this maintenance report indicates that after this last fault with the ailerons was solved, the pilot confirmed to the maintenance technician that they had worked correctly during the flight. He said, and here we publish what he said textually, 'the red light which indicates a fault with the slat did not light up'. The answer from the technician was 'thank you for the information'.
[Quotes within the article itself put in
bold for clarity]
El avión de Spanair tuvo dos averías en el sistema de alerones días antes del accidente en CADENASER.com