Funny that the bus has flown so many hours and yet, the TR MEL has generally never been an issue, nor does there appear to be many operators having problems with the TL position and EPR/N1.
It may be, that this particular bus was defective, it may be an issue similar to the SE go around that was accidentally discovered, but so far, it appears from the evidence that one TL was left in a position where it should not have been.
Sometimes there are esoteric circumstances and other times there are imple reasons, untill all is known, it would appear that this may have an accident caused by a human error.
As for the post about the three go a rounds by a nwa crew, I am not sure it ever happened, although have certainly heard the story often enough and secondly, I think it might have been an issue not related to the a/c but more due to infamiliarity with same. I know of one pilot, who flew the AB the lenght of the rwy at 50 feet while the AB maintained Vref beautifully. He had not retarded the TLs
