Well, it looks like the only interesting previously unknown information from the declaration is that a technician mentioned that the pilot told him that, before calling them in for maintenance assistant, the pilot tried to "fix the RAT heater problem" by pulling an c/b himself, but that didn't work. We don't know which circuit breaker or if he reset it, but probably so and probably not of consecuence for the accident.
Nothing overly important, but it goes to show that if the pilots would've figured out the "correct" c/b to pull to turn the heater off, maybe they wouldn't even have returned to gate and called maintenance at all.
Who, BTW, weren't of much help trying to avoid the accident either.
The repair manual details the tests to perform and systems that could be affected. This was followed by the technicians in Barcelona the night before. But it seems the problem didn't manifest during the night test.
The MEL, of course, pretty much only states that the airplane can fly with an inop RAT probe heater if the conditions don't have any risk of ice formation.
Maintenance standard procedure when the airplane is "in service": look the MEL, figure if the airplane can fly with the defect. It's not "written in a book", I don't think, but it's the "understood" procedure to follow.
I personally think that's not the "right" way. To me, this job would imply to spend 5 minutes trying to troubleshoot it and, once it's clear it needs more time but the defect is "isolated" and quite understood, then you can look up the MEL to make sure the airplane can fly with the problem until there is time for a proper repair. You could still have missed something important, but at least you gave it a shot.
But to give a problem ZERO thought, not to even bother to look it up in the manual to give it a quick glance and spend 3 or 4 minutes with it, but to blindly go straight to MEL while "liberally" interpreting it ... well, it had to happen some day.
We all understand the "pressure" of commericalism, but I'm sure nobody minds any 5 min delays that are there for true safety reasons. Spending 5 minutes of brain power to figure out possible ramifications of a quite clear problem is better than taking the risk of spending 15 years in prison, like it may well happen to those two poor guys.
I don't think the third person indicted, the chief of technical maintenance for Spanair, will be finally prosecuted at the end (or at least, sentenced), as his participation was pretty much nil and each repair action that is not consulted is the sole responsability of the licensed technician involve.
Both technicians directly involved in the action consulted with each other and they both understood what was being done and they both agreed their actions were the correct ones. This was also explained to the pilot who agreed as well that the airplane could fly.
Accusation lawyers are bitching about how the same problem had two different responses from the Barcelona and the Madrid technicians. The answer: the first ones were trying to fix it and followed the manual. The seconds were just trying to avoid it and didn't even look at the manual.