xander - a sad sight indeed...
Green-dot;
Interesting...
, I think we ended up on the same page!
Capt. Inop;
I think that the answer to this tragic accident lies elsewhere than an open reverse bucket.
If you examine the (other) photo of the reverser pictured earlier with the fire engine in the background, you can conclude that one bucket, almost certainly the "lower" one, hit something while the "top" one is pristine, (relatively speaking). The fairly uniform crumpling pattern would lead one to conclude (on this flimsy evidence, I know), that this reverser hit the ground. There are abrasion marks parallel to the direction of aircraft travel before breakup which still may be discerned through the poor quality, "guassed" jpeg image (which has been re-sampled like crazy).
Here is the photo, turned vertically so as to possibly (not "properly" as earlier stated) relate to the ground when in position on the aircraft. We dont' know if this is the right orientation but it is more likely than the alternative. The photo earlier in the thread of just two reversers and a lot of ground dug out shows that deployed reversers will strike the ground before the tail on this fleet type, (ergo, the tail in the "wheel-tracks" photo, perhaps?).
We can't really tell if this is the left or right engine. I've tried looking at all kinds of images, angles, marks but though we have images of both engines, you can't tell which is which from the available photos.