Originally Posted by 747dieseldude

What killed the poor chaps, is that they did everything in a rush. They did not have time to asses their situation, and do checklists i order, which led to assimetry, reducing airspeed too fast etc.
All this is because engines took with them the fire detection loops, resulting in a false fire warning. Since the crew was not aware that the engines had seperated, and the information was not relayed to them by the tower (who knew of the seperation), they believed an actual fire burning that could not be extinguished. That was the reason they tried to put the aircraft on the ground as soon as possible, without getting organized first.
Without the so-called "fire", they might have kept going, assesing the situation, and getting the very reliable 747, which at the point of flight the failure occured, was very survivable.

Originally Posted by lomapaseo

I don't recall that the tower was aware of the loss of the engines during the ATC conversations. What source do you have for this?

Originally Posted by 747dieseldude

lomapaseo,

The tower got a phone call from someone (i thing he was an officer in the coast guard, or other official) who had seen one engine fall into the water.

It was in the official report. The tower was confused by the crew call that they "lost" the engines, and understood that they knew they had really lost them. Had the crew reported engine fire or failure, the tower would have told them about the phone call.