So I am a little confused. The opinion is that the crew had configured for a go around, boards are stowed, throttles forward and flaps 1 in the detent. At what point would this decision have been made I wonder? I mean surely not at 40 kts with the aircraft about to falloff the end of the runway? Yet the final resting place of the aircraft would suggest what ever forward momentum it had was effectively used up in the slide down the hill and the abrupt stop when it reached the pavement. The impact of course caused the forward fuselage section to buckle upwards and break off before sliding into the nearby wall. But none of this suggests the aircraft 'flew' off the end under T/O power as you might imagine say a failed launch off an aircraft carrier. If that had been the case, then the impact would have been some distance further on and of course casualties would have been much higher if not a complete disaster. Instead, this aircraft seems to have literally flopped off the end. I might hazard a guess that it wasn't the wall that caused the crew casualties but rather the impact with the pavement after the slide down the hill.
Just cant imagine the circumstances for all this to happen. How long does it take to spool up, how long does it take for the flaps to come up from 30 or 40 to 1 ? How close to the runway end do you have to be before you say, nah let's give this away. Or put another way, if you fall off the end at 40 kts or so, when did you make your go around decision with a 13 kt tail wind? I mean surely, before you commit to take the aircraft back into the air again, you have to have assessed there is a better that even chance the aircraft will in fact get airborne in the what's left of the runway?
The flap handle was in the flap 1 detent and this is what flap 1 looks like on a B737-800 as far as I can ascertain:
But this what the flaps looked like on the accident aircraft where you can see the flaps appear to be extended much further. Note the trailing flap devices and how their hinges are visible whereas in the image above these cant be seen. So what does this suggest? Someone has played with flap lever perhaps as part of removing the crew? Or, were the flaps still travelling as the aircraft plunged off the end? In which case this go around must have been desperate affair.
I imagine the near destruction of the engines on the slide down the slope and possibly the lights going out gave rise to the reports of 'heroic' actions by the pilot in turning off the engines.
EDIT: Subsequent imagery makes it very clear the the flap lever is in the 40 deg detent.