I checked the 737 doesn’t have a RAT as standard equipment at all, it’s a custom order so that could explain the lack of RAT deployment clearly in the videos there is no turbine hanging down from the fuselage. Boeing expects the APU to be running should both engines fail or be unavailable. The APU is the backup third redundant system in the 737 series. So if the FO killed the good engine by mistake and didn’t have the APU already running they were in deep kimchi at that point.
This is a 800 series it has three hydraulic circuits A,B and stand by <<< this is the APU driven one. the manual says that either engine’s hydraulic pump can still be driven by ram air via windmilling at speed. It doesn’t specify what the minimum airspeed is for windmill operation it looks like under 200 knots is below the minimum windmill speed. Without that APU they would’ve been running on manual reversion controls without hydraulics at all. Plus too slow for a windmill restart on the good engine ,since no APU means no high pressure bleed air either. Boeing says there are two electrical driven pumps one each for A&B systems with batteries for 60 min of basic instruments and also basic hydraulics this was their justification for not being required to have a RAT by the FAA. Someone would have forgotten to link the battery bus to one of the electrical driven pumps on the hydraulic circuit of the good engine. Those batteries also supply DC voltage to the APU starting motor/generator bus so they could have spun up the APU and then had full electrical and hydraulics plus HP starting air. Someone messed up and messed up badly this aircraft has triple redundant back ups plus manual reversion flight controls and a full 60 min battery for flight instruments no way those were depleted in 4 min driving the hydraulics ou the A or B system. The FO didn’t tie the emergency DC bus to either the hydraulics nor the APU nor the bus with the black bdoes which would have been primary flight instrumentation bus as well.
I heard a report (don’t know if it’s accurate, of course) that the APU was out of service on that flight. If true, one more hole in the Swiss cheese that came into alignment.
You might be close on some of that. Like you, I think someone shutdown the wrong engine. That would explain the gear up, no flap approach. Keeping best L/D to extend the glide.
My 40 years in the flying profession has seen all variations of emergency checklist philosophy. The one that seemed the most workable was FO flies and CA works the checklist. But, of course, we hired experienced and capable FOs that could fly a plane and work the radios.
The lower tier airlines don’t have the luxury of a deep hiring pool, so they may use a Captain flies and FO runs the checklist philosophy.
The things you mention that could have been done immediately are farther down in the checklist. There could have also been confusion on which checklist was needed first. Of all the aircraft I have flown, the 737 was the most difficult to select the proper checklist. A simple generator failure at the wrong time could present itself as an electrical problem, a hydraulic problem, a fuel pump problem, an AC problem, a lighting problem, or a radio problem. Diagnosis took a fairly deep knowledge of the systems.
What happened may forever be a mystery with the missing CVR and FDR data.
As a side note, the B777 electronic checklist was IMO one of the greatest advances in aviation safety in a long time. It presented the most critical checklist first, then by priority the next checklist. You could not move on unless the item was already automatically done or the item was manually checked.
EC