What was the weather (as observed from the airport ) on that morning?.Was there cloud cover? If the "crew" had been involved in a struggle for their lives ,would they have had any idea that there was an airfield in the vicinity?.If the legal crew were dead I would suggest that the passengers would have little or no idea where they were and consequently would not have been able to identify the airfield.
However under NORMAL circumstances in order to best see the airfield the right hand side of the aircraft would be the side of choice.(I rather think that in the chaos of that morning there might be NO-ONE looking out the window rather whoever was in "control" was struggling to keep the aircraft flying first and foremost).
I am not a pilot.I am an Air Traffic Controller.I would say that the last thing I would expect on that morning would be the crew to do ANYTHING other than to keep the aircraft flying as long as possible.I would expect them to
AVIATE
NAVIGATE
COMMUNICATE
in that order.I think the transponder is a red herring.