El Mundo, citing first-hand access to the aircraft's maintenance log, wrote that in the days before the crash, there has been alarms and inspections regarding slats and flaps; and two events of overheated RAT probe on the day before the crash.
This has been discussed before in the thread.
It seems the MD-82 has a known "problem" that the autoslat failure lamp turns on sometimes when the flaps are set. You just put them back and set them again. It's not a "real" problem, just a glitch with the autoslat warning that happens once in a blue moon.
Autoslats are not used during take off.
I have no idea how the system works exactly , but I remember the explanations by those who do making sense and they all agreed the "failure" wasn't related to the accident. Just a coincidence. If someone cares to explain exactly what the autoslat fail warning light indicates (and how or why it can be on while setting flaps 15 upon landing), we will all appreciate it.
I don't have access to the maintenance logs. But here is a picture of the page describing failures as reported to the judge:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6...anair13bw3.jpg
In short, it says:
Day 1) Right reverser, acummulator low caution light on. Action taken: right reverser deactivated, valve blocked in DUMP position, C/B out, no leaks found, accumulator 1000 psi.
Day 18) Autoslats fail when slats extended -- Action, system reset, everything fine, failure doesn't show up again during their testing.
Pilots: During landing, autoslat light turns on again when flaps 15 was selected -- Action, several tests done (PSU, Stall warning computer, etc)
Report back from pilot: "Autoslat light not on again ever since" - Service replies: THX
Day 19) During line up, on 3 occasions, RAT temperature reaches 90º ... EPR drops to 1 30 same as sequence L36" -- Maintenance in Barcelona runs tests as AMM 34 18.00 ???
Low tire pressure on main wheel 4º -- Maintenance action in Barcelona: replaced tire 4.
So, basically, the RAT probe heater was pbbly intermitently (or permanently, who knows) turning on while on the ground also on the 19th, the day before the accident, but nobody quite caught the failure, it seems.
As we know, the airplane made another flight w/o incidents on the same morning with the same pilots. Theoretically, on that occassion, the crew was suppossed to have run a TOWS check before takeoff. I don't think the CVR contains that flight, as it only records 40 min and since they did one RTG right before they were about to TO in Madrid, they were taxing and stuff for like an hour on their second flight of the day (the one where the accident happened).
Most of this has been discussed before in the thread wayyyy back.