[VOA]

If the left engine thrust reverser had either partially or completely actuated
during flight, it would cause the plane to go into a flat spin to the left.

I'm no aviation professional...but I do remember seeing a story for maybe 5 years or so ago
in which it was speculated that a jetliner was brought down someplace in South America...and it
was thought the cause was that a thrust reverser had been deployed during takeoff
due to a signal from a cell-phone aboard the plane.

I don't know if that is even possibe...if it were, I'd think there would be planes falling
out of the sky all the time!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I remember that crash. I think that it was one of the few planes that hadn't been modified yet to meet the requriment that all planes using "thrust reversers" have shear bolts installed. If the "thrust reversers" did deploy in flight, the bolts were designed to break off, so the plane won't get dragged down as described here. The modification came from an earlier crash. All planes were inspected after that and those under FAA certification have these bolts installed. So the scenario in the original article doesn't work.

[SW6906]

Former racecar driver Nikki Lauda's company Lauda Air lost a Boeing aircraft (737?) several years back. The cause was determined to be in-flight actuation of the thrust reverser. Pretty catastrophic. As has already been said: the Flight Data Recorder would have shown the actuation (it reads off the engine status, not the levers in the cockpit) and the wreckage would have very clearly shown any sabotage and the deployed reverser.

Didn't we have pretty clear pictures of both engines? Was a reverser deployed?