You'd be copping a lot more than criticism if you rejected only to find you'd damaged the airplane...which is a big part of the reason that Boeing states one should NOT reject for a T/R indication in absence of vibration, directional control issues, or other indications that it's more than just a light.
Bear in mind that with the Lauda mishap, the airplane had already experienced 13 incidents of recorded T/R failures and failure messages in the months preceeding the crash. The crew had warnings for about ten minutes before the reverser deployed. Further, the event which occured where the subject of multiple later system changes and airworthiness directives...this isn't something to be expected or reasonably anticipated on other aircraft, or the same aircraft in the time since.
If you place the flight in jeopardy over what you think might happen, you accept a real risk and a high probability of damage, vs. a possibility which does not yet exist. When considering abnormalities or emergencies occuring during the high speed portion of the takeoff roll, in nearly all cases you are FAR better to continue the takeoff and treat the condition as an airborne emergency.
Whereas the engine may be shut down in very sort order, the threat of a T/R deployment isn't worthy of a high speed rejected takeoff if no other conditions exist at the time of the reverser indication.
If you want to compare the 767 mishap with the question central to the thread about identifying a problem a few knots before V1, you have to take into account the ten minutes the crew had to consider the abnormality announcement. Furthermore, the crew wasn't looking at an unlocked or T/R deployment condition immediately, but the same valve annunciations that had been occuring in the past; there's more history to what happened than simply someone saw a light and took action (or didn't).
Last edited by SNS3Guppy; 15th Oct 2008 at 03:02.