Originally Posted by
HOVIS
It gets worse, the left/port engine used to be number one. 😒
It's probably worth mentioning that, for a long-time, long-range aircraft had (at least) two engines on each side. So a simple 'port - starboard' or even 'left - right' was not sufficient. Hence engine's 1, 2, 3, 4 (from left to right).
It wasn't all that long ago that I often heard flight crews (and even ground maintenance types) refer to engines on a twin as '1 and 2' - presumably as a bit of a throwback to the 747 (and perhaps 707).
However EICAS messages on twins have
aways referred to the engines as "L and R" - while the 747-400 and -8 have them numbered 1 - 4.