1. The article mentions "causing the incident". Was there a history of failure of the Recirc Fan and maintenance kept signing it off without adequate repair/replacement and thus it eventually failed in this manner and caused this bad possible scenario? I don't know. But we all know maintenance at cx has been declining rapidly and many many discrepancies keep getting signed off without adequate action being taken and the problem keeps occurring over and over again. This is actually a well known indicator of pending serious incidents/accidents to accident investigations when they look back in the records.
2. As the culture of lie is the the most core culture of cx, none of us know the real details of this incident so going past curiosity about what might have actually happened and openly judging is not appropriate. So please take the rest of what I say as hypothetical when it comes to the crew. Admittedly, I don't know ALL the facts since this organization does not inform and educate us after the fact so we can learn and not allow mistakes to be repeated in the future. I'll stick to the things I personally know first hand. I'm sure there's much more to the story.
3. Sticking to the facts, One thing is for sure if you take a step back and look at the big picture. An aircraft having successfully landed after such and event (smoke/fire on-board) taking off again without maintenance addressing the discrepancy on-site is a major mistake of several levels . Cx mx did not get to the aircraft before it departed for ANC. No qualified person was there to release the aircraft back into service. The departure of that aircraft from Shemya was illegal on many levels. The aircraft departed with several open discrepancies. The cause of the smoke was not known as it was not troubleshot by a qualified person on-site. It's very ignorant to think mx action or troubleshooting can be performed over the phone, especially regarding such a serious event. Cx mx was half way there on a chartered flight when the 777 took off for ANC. They were shocked to find out it had departed. Who re-stowed the oxy masks? This is a mx action and NONE of the crew are qualified or knowledgeable to perform it. IF smoke in-flight had occurred again and it easily could have since nobody qualified to perform mx troubleshooting touched the aircraft, would those oxy masks have deployed having been stowed by the flight crew or cabin crew who aren't qualified or authorized to perform mx action? Several sever lapse of judgement occurred from various directions. Mx control should have never relinquished it's professional responsibility and should have kept the aircraft grounded until properly released back to service after proper mx action was performed. Dispatch (yes i know, we don't have a dispatch department at cx since we don't have licensed dispatchers and they're a joke) should have never allowed this to happen. The fleet office individual or reportedly the GMO at the time who has on other occasions similar threatened the Capt. of the flight to operate or else should have been outed a long time ago and should now be investigated and put on record for his actions. This is very likely a big part of the lawsuit.
4. The decision to go along with this very bad decision willingly albeit via threats and coercion, is something the Capt. owns and the rest of the crew along with her. Any and all of them had could have showed some professional integrity and remove themselves form the flight to ANC. They chose not to have professional integrity by being willing participants. It's very possible they had no idea of seriousness of what they were doing especially if they started their professional careers as cx cadets and have no clue about the real world of aviation outside cx and never will unless they leave cx at some point. Either way, very embarrassing.
5. Knowing from personal experience, at other airlines, when a serious incident like this happens, there's transparency at an organizational level very early on to inform and educate the rest of the crew body about what occurred and lessons learned so the next incident can be avoided or handled better in the future. At cx, details are never made known and only rumors abound. There's a serious ORGANIZATIONAL problem at this outfit for such things to be possible to happen without any effort to prevent these decisions and events from happening in the future. It is the organization's responsibility to set the tone and demand it be followed. We all know this place has a big problem setting the right tone when it comes to safety. The tone they forcefully set is for COMMERCIAL reasons much more than SAFETY. This will catch up with them rile sooner or later in a bad way. It is the professional responsibility to have the integrity it takes to refuse to be part of such and event until reality of a horrible event due to willful disregard for regulations/SOPs, fatigue, etc. will force the organization to flush itself out.