what is the source of this information??

if you are a pilot, i wonder does the chief pilot sign the acceptance of your plane everyday??
I think that it is not possible for the Spanair head of MX to sign off all AOG's at all airports of spanair network.
normally maintenance engineers sign off work that they have performed according the relevant documentation

One source here: Mechanics subpoenaed after Spanish air crash - Aftenposten.no

The source of that information is, mostly, from the part of the declaration of Spanair's chief of maintenance, Jesús Torralba A., made to the police on Aug 23rd where he says:

"I came to work at 6:45 that morning .... At the moment of the problem (the RAT heater issue) I wasn't told anything (nobody informed him about it). I was never involved in the resolution of the case, since the airplane was never out of service (AOG, Aircraft on ground, where the airplane is not fit to fly) ..."

"... The certifiers as well as the local supervisors in service can resolve this type of incidencies w/o informing the chief of maintenance, since they hold a licence for servicing this type of aircrafts. In the case that the airplane was AOG, it would've had to be reported to the chief of maintenance .... I was at the office of the company in Dique Sur when my local supervisor on service told me he had received a call from operations of a possible accident of an Spanair a/c. I looked outside the window in my office and I noticed the smoke mushroom. I went to the area and I reported back to my superiors that, indeed, the airplane was a Spanair ..."

Basically all studies about aviation accidents cite human error as the main cause in the majority of cases. The ones I've read with the lowest number estimates over 60%. The ones with the highest: 80%.

It seems to be accepted in the industry that at least 66% of them are due to human error as the main factor. Roughly 25% due to mechanical/electrical malfunctions and roughly 10% due to weather and other issues as the primary cause.

Human errors for managers and regulators too…

The most important safety strategy today centres on the relationship between management and safety.
Managers play a fundamental role in defining and sustaining the safety culture of their organizations.
Regulators and airline management define the environment within which operational personnel conduct their tasks: it is they who determine the policies and procedures, allocate the resources, investigate failures of the system and take remedial action.
Human error should become a warning flag for regulators and managers, a possible symptom that individual workers have been unable to achieve the system goals because of difficult working environments, flaws in policies and procedures, inadequate allocation of resources, or other deficiencies in the architecture of the system.
Dr Kotaite. ICAO. 1997

In case somebody has trouble finding it, there is now an officially-translated-to-english version of the preliminary report about this accident here: http://www.fomento.es/NR/rdonlyres/1...reliminary.pdf

Today's round of witnesess didn't uncover anything new. The woman supervising the cargo loading ratified her first account

...
Cargo bay 1: a live animal (the dog that didn't survive), 22 passenger's suitcases plus the crew's luggage.
Cargo bay 2: fresh fish (400kg) and apparels (Timberland).
Cargo bay 4: 115 pieces of PAX luggage
...

She handed out the cargo sheet to the pilot personally and recalls asking him: "Is there any problem with the aircraft?" and the pilot replied: "(no,) None".

More witnesses will be called to declare within the next weeks. The maintenance technicians will have to declare on November 12th.

Courts Martial Are Real Courts
 

If I have misread the above quote, I apologize, but at least in the U.S., courts martial are real courts and they are deadly serious. Courts martial have been established by acts of congress under The Uniform Code of Military Justice. They are not show trials for the sake of public opinion. Convictions in courts martial are the same as convictions in any other federal court and the punishments awarded, including imprisonment and death, are very real.

Just say that if the accident had not happened and that the correct flap setting had been made, would the Engineers now be being investigated for ATTEMPTED manslaughter, for not considering the possible implications of their actions?

justme69.
The way the head of mx would be involved in an AOG would be to organise servicable parts, manpower tooling etc to get the aircraft fixed. it is the responsibility of the engineers to perform the work and release the aircraft to service.

for me they would need to investigate whether spanair mcc, informed the the head of mx about this. i have heard nothing about the role that spanair mcc had to play in this. a return to stand for an a/c for a mx event should be reported to the head of mx.

I have a question.
Are the engineers charged or have they been notified that an investigation for involuntary manslaughter is going on. In many countries the judge has to notify the persons that are subject to an investigation, which does not mean at all that they are charged. I am asking because I am not familiar with the Spanish Law.

No formal charges yet, that comes later in the process, once they are 'acusados' for a formal trial.

Currently they are only 'imputados', i.e. there are 'reasonable reasons' to believe that these persons could be directly connected to a criminal event.

On the other hand, being 'imputados' gives them additional procedural rights which they do not have when they are mere 'witnesses': you do not have to testify against yourself, you hav eaccess to all of the data in the judges possession...which in one sense may be better for them.


The funny thing is that the judge actually based his connection to call them 'imputados' on non-official details coming from the CIAIAC investigation...which is clearly against Annex 13 and the EU directive on accident investigation...which call for separate judicial and aviation investigations.

The judge's commission, however, has not officially been created as a result of this requirement ?!! but as a result of his desire to speed things up...

I know I should not react on a thread like this, but....

1. Without knowing all the fact there is no doubt in my mind the engineers went to work that morning with the mind-set of not doing their work to the best of their abilities.
2. Nobody in the airline industry working in safety critical places is going to his work with the idea of "let's have a crash today".
3. It's teeth crunching to see a judge (or juridical system) gets to draw the line in a safety critical industry. The negative effects of this involvement will be widespread (less volentary reporting, no cooperation with safety investigation etc).

I can only hope there will be european wide reaction to this involvement of the judge while the safety investigation is still ongoing....

Keep in mind, that at the same time the judge decided to indict the mechanics, lawyers asked for 154 million euros (1 ea victim) from Spanair as caution.

Which means that the judge is doing his job. The engineers have been notified of the investigation on their actions... The judge cannot discount criminal negligence without proper investigation... and according to the law he has to notify the parties about the ongoing investigation...

Blacksheep has it spot on. Think about it your £600 TV goes wrong how long does it take to fix when you take it in, 2 weeks maybe.
Your multi millon £ aeroplane goes wrong and it needs to be fixed yesterday.

Hey, it's slowing down. We should be able to reach 2,500 posts and 1 mil reviews by Halloween! Push it up!

Well, not much new.

The judge keeps demanding documentation from Spanair. Now he's concentrating on the ground engineers' permits, history of past repairs on other airplanes, repair manuals, etc.

Better news is that all the survivors from the crash have left the hospitals except for the two in more serious condition, who are nonetheless slowly recovering.

Justme,

you're kind as always in answering to 1Bingo, but I'm afraid his post was simply due to the need of "leaving a written sign at any cost", a bit like the ones that go like "let's wait for the official report", and "you guys are just speculating without a clue".

Of course both kind of "contributions" would be better to actually never happen, but such is the human nature for some, they can't paint, but are happy to just tag their name on a wall.

EDIT: tnx lomapaseo for suggesting the right word for "tagging".

it's called tagging. similar to a dog wandering between trees and a fire hydrant, it lets other dogs know that he's around. . and now I to am a worthless contributor to this thread

el # and lomapaseo,

There are occasions where, me too, I briefly lift my leg against the fire hydrant of a particular subject to leave a trace, without having anything significant to say.

The reason is, that PPRuNe lacks the simple function (which exists in many other forums) to be able to subscribe (for email notification) to a thread without first having posted in it at least once.

There are threads I like to follow, without necessarily having anything to contribute myself. Having to post a brief pointless remark to subscribe annoys me, but it's the only way.

CJ

Poor mechanics
 

Poor mechanics, it is probably the worst thing that could surpass one.

Will the mechanics be accused of having a responsibility for the defective TOWS.
And will the investigations find out that pilots did not use flaps, Then I could imagine that there are many mechanics who want to move to another branch.
Who will have such a responsibility on themselves, and be blamed for others' mistakes, and risk a penelty.
It is very exciting what the judge will concluded in this case.

Hopefully there will soon be a crucial track which can determine where the fault can be placed.