Shutting Down the Wrong Engine.
A thought has occurred to me reading aboutr the ATR 72 in Taiwan. The opinion at the moment is that the crew shut down No1 engine where in fact it was No2 that had failed. The aircraft's immediate history was that there was a problem with No 1 engine. This knowledge could POSSIBLY have led them to carry out the shutdown on No1.
Taking the 332 as an example, for base checks where the candidate has to demonstrate a successful recovery after an engine failure the No 2 engine is restricted so as not to encroach into its overhaul life. This equipment is always fitted to No 2 engine. Therefore the candidate will know that he is going to have a No 1 engine failure.
A flashback to the 1960s. The Lightning simulator at Wattisham had its own callsign. One day a Lightning had an engine fire with appropiate Mayday calls that led to total confusion in ATC because he had reverted to the simulator callsign. From then on the simulator was issued with a random callsign.
Should a 332 have an engine failure in a high stress situation would it be possible, despite that checklist requirement to confirm which engine is the problem, that the No 1 engine would be subconciously shut down irrespective of which engine is at fault because this is the engine which is always retarded.
The problem should not arise where all the checks are carried out in the simulator but again the Taiwanese crew involved had also been through simulator training.
How many times did they have a No1 engine failure?