Left engine fire but right turn!?
I think there is something very odd. If indeed the eye witness accounts are correct that the no.1 engine was on fire why did it yaw right and crash?
I cant help but wonder if there maybe 2 scenarios here.
Maybe it was the classic sim nightmare scenario of engine fire on one engine and engine failure on the other and they delt with the fire first and closed that thrust lever without noticing the no2 engine had failed there by leaving them with not enough thrust to fly but enough thrust from no1 to cause a right yaw?
Or maybe they shut down the wrong engine. It has been done before and no matter how aware of that you are us pilots are human at the end of the day. It may have been identified correctly and wrong thrust lever closed or maybe mis identified and the wrong engine shut down.
Some eye witnesses (normally unreliable) say the no1 engine separated. If that happened and it took out the left hand side of the tail plane lift will still have been produced on the right hand side turning the a/c to the left plus the no1 engine would have forced the aircraft to the left if it was running!
Now before anyone gets offended that omg how can he say its pilot error and get their knickers in a twist i would like to make 2 points.
1)Pilots love to speculate in situations like this, with and without all the facts, right or wrongly (just like we love to moan).
2)The fact is i really hope it was not pilot error that led to the final hole in the swiss cheese but facts are facts and in most cases pilot error is the biggest cause of crashes, we are the last link in the error chain and if we get it wrong then there is no escape!
My thoughts go out to the crew and pax of the flight and their families that are left behind.