Good and bad news in the case.
On the bad side, the judge has decided to charge the two maintenance technicians that did the probe heater "repair" and the chief of maintenance for Spanair with involuntary homicide and criminal neglicency.
He is pissed nodoby took proper care of the heater problem in a period of over 24h spread in two days (albeit in different cities). Also, nowhere did it say in the manuals that the working air intake heater could just be disconected, only that a faulty heater could be delayed for maintenance if the flight conditions didn't pose risk of ice formation (good weather).
The judge took this decision late today as a result of the declaration of the first round of witnesses that he was interviewing.
Also, the judge decided NOT TO TRUST THE CIAIAC to carry out the "official" investigation and has ordered a new technical investigation to take place parallel to the CIAIAC's.
He ordered to recruit two pilots, two maintenance engineers and two aeronautics engineers to investigate for him. He ordered the official professional pilot's association to send the court a list of 30 suitable professional pilots with over 15 years of experience. Same thing with the association of aeronautical engineers. There isn't an official association of professional maintenance technicians in Spain, so he requested from the Ministry of Development (Fomento) a list of 30 wide-experience, certified mechanics that specialize in MD-82.
The first round of witnesses included some members from the rescue squads.
Next Friday he will call another 6 witnesses, including some workers of ground services for Spanair's subcontractor Newco. Another 4 witnesses on oct. 27th and more on the 31st.
My personal position is that, although there is no doubt the technicians could've done a much better job, it's understandeable that they felt the problem was minor and could've been easily isolated temporarily and taken care of later. If the pilots wouldn't have forgotten the flaps/slats until the airplane arrived at another location with Spanair's ground engineers, it would've gotten fixed and everything would've been ok (sort-of).
Also, it was the pilot's decission to fly the aircraft and not use the other one that was fully ready, with a gate assigned and personnel present, with the busses to move the PAX already in place waiting by the aircraft. Even more, the crew could've made another "start of the day" check (i.e. TOWS check) if they weren't sure the airplane was in perfect shape.
Also, the issue with the probe heater turning on while on the ground, seemed to be an intermitent problem, so perhaps it didn't show on the times the technicians checked it the prior day, as they declared in the maintenance log that all tests with the probe went normal. And, theoretically, the crew run a TOWS test in the previous flight from Barcelona, as required by the SOP.
But a real smart engineer would've questioned how it was possible the heater was switched on while on the ground, and quickly realized that the only way was if there was an inop relay or faulty ground/logic system. Tracing it back, would've questioned the ability of the airplane to safely fly until many more sub-systems were checked, specially the TOWS.
If the heater had really malfunctioned, then there is no doubt in my book that the technicians wouldn't have done anything wrong by isolating it and signing off the a/c. But in this case, the heater was working just fine, except it did when it wasn't suppossed to. In my book, that deserves a little bit more attention and there is a (small) part of responsability in the results of those actions. I wouldn't go as far as to classify it as criminal neglicency, as a significant number of ground engineers would've done the same action given the situation. But not all of them, of course. Boeing also needed to make the maintenance information for that case more clear, I think.
On the good side, only 5 survivors remain hospitalized. The condition of one of them is not made public by desire of her family. The other four are getting better, but two still remain in serious condition, one of which is still in intensive care.
Last edited by justme69; 16th Oct 2008 at 08:52.