IIRC, the FO on that flight was extremely inexperienced and possibly sleep-deprived at the time, and was paid a pittance indicating that she was likely on the lowest rung of the promotion ladder. While the captain, if not incompetent, had a fatally incorrect reaction to the stall warning.
Yeah they are, thrust. The flaps are similar, a lever with notches. I’ll look for it. To the right of thrust are the flaps. Etsy model of real controls:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1243761804/boeing-787-dual-full-pkg-with-spring
I’m working from (possibly faulty) memory from watching loads of Mentour Pilot and 74 Gear incident analysis videos - I can’t find an exact example of the thing I mentioned, but there is this one, where one engine failed and the pilot throttled back the remaining working engine in error: TransAsia crash pilot pulled wrong throttle, shut down sole working engine | Taiwan | The Guardian
Oh here we go: https://simpleflying.com/report-pilot-error-british-airways-boeing-777-200er-fire-takeoff-london-gatwick/
Better than trying to brush your teeth with a razor! Ouch!
Indeed. Last time I flew I got one of those seats, and I had a carry on. Then I get all seated, and find there’s no place to stow it. By then there were no empty overhead bins. Since it was a black bag, and I had black jeans, I just stuck it behind my legs acted all cool and hoped the flight attendant didn’t notice it in the shadows. She didn’t.
That’s a big gotcha, and we train for it. Part of our procedures are to always, always, always confirm which engine we are dealing with while troubleshooting. Especially when shutting it down. We do it in each step of the checklist (“Fuel pump, left engine off - confirm…” “Thrust lever to idle, left engine - confirm…”)
Quick story: When I became an airline pilot my sim partner and the instructor were old friends. They conspired during an emergency scenario to try to get me to shut down the wrong engine. The instructor failed the #1 (left) engine, but while I performed the checklist my partner put his hand on the #2 (right) thrust lever and said, “Failed engine - confirm”.
I caught it and firmly said, “Negative!”
At the time, I felt it was a dirty trick. But probably a good drill because that exact mistake has created several smoking craters.
As for the British Airways 777, I do recall that now. Not a common type of mistake, I think. I would ascribe it to a disruption of the somewhat delicate ballet between the flying pilot and non-flying pilot during takeoff and landing. With the captain in the left seat but the first officer as the flying pilot, an exchange of controls happens, usually at 80 knots. In a rejected takeoff the roles remain, but then change and it’s all very sudden if it happens at high speed (but below V1).
So I can understand the error. Rejected takeoffs aren’t common and a few things have to happen very rapidly.
I must point out here that observations based on shaky, low quality cell phone videos are as likely to be fooled by digital artifacts and other camera illusions as to observe anything useful.
As I recall, she was operating out of New York or New Jersey and she was not paid enough to be able to afford to live there. She was living with her parents and commuting from Seattle. Hence, the sleep deprivation.
Which was a surprise to nobody in the industry. But the Colgan accident changed some of the thinking on this.
Previously, your base was your base and if you “chose” to live somewhere else, getting to your base was your problem on your own time, and therefore not subject to most of the pilot rest rules. That hasn’t changed completely, but airlines did begin to recognize the problem of commuting pilots and some started providing in-base hotel rooms under certain circumstances.
But even now, the only way I would return to the airline world is if I could live in a base. The charter and private jet world is very different in this respect. Many charter jobs are “home based”, meaning the company arranges and funds your travel to work and back. I found I preferred that system.
I believe you are correct that it has happened that a pilot has mistakenly moved throttles into low power.
That said, I thought the 787 had an autothrottle so the pilots usually do not manually use the throttles but instead dial in a desired speed and the plane then moves the throttles on its own.
I think the pilot moves the throttles up when taking off but leave it to autothrottle after that.
IANAPilot
Presumably there is some manual override in case of a rejected takeoff? (ie if you abort the takeoff at V1, you need some way to tell the plane you no longer require full engine power) - maybe that override got accidentally or mistakenly activated.
If you’re conspiracy-minded, the New York Times reports that the chief minister of Gujarat until 2021, Vijay Rupani, was a passenger. Though someone who’s been out of office for four years or so seems an unlikely target for assassination.
This might help with visualization of the controls. The image is from a 787-10 (the newest), but should be nearly the same on any model.
The two large central controls are for throttle.
The cool thing about the controls that seem pretty much universal to Boeing, not sure about other airplanes, is that many of them look like the things they control. The flap control looks sorta like a flap, the landing gear control looks like a little wheel, and even the light switches look like little lights, at least on the 737. I guess the speed brake control is supposed to look like a fully extended speed brake if you use your imagination!
This is good ergonomic design. I detest car interior designs that do exactly the opposite – in the crazy misguided interest of “symmetry” or something, you sometimes find completely unrelated controls that do entirely different things but look exactly the same!
Why? what are you basing that on? In the US 1500 hrs gets you in the right seat of a small commuter plane where you work your way up to a larger plane like a 787.
On top of that it depends on how those 1500 hrs were acquired. Were they by a fast tracked aviation school or were the hrs earned flying in real world conditions over time.
And flying a plane isn’t just knowing what buttons to push or settings to make. It involves eye/hand/foot coordination. There are plenty of websites dedicated to watching landings in windy conditions. It’s pretty obvious who does it well and who doesn’t. It’s NOT a cookie cutter skill. Pilots are not blessed with the same skills coming out of a training school as seasoned pilots any more than surgeons are.
At the end of the day the skills of a pilot go way beyond an ordinary flight. Most of the work involves programming the plane so that it climbs out and maintains the flight envelope under automation. The real skill is the ability to handle an emergency situation. It’s a brain-frying event until control is established. I’m not saying the pilots of the flight did anything wrong but I am saying the FO was on the low side of flight experience for this type of plane.
Cessna 172 Skyhawk flap switch:
Here’s the gear switch from a Beechcraft King Air:
This is - to an extent - by design. 14 CFR § 25.781 specifies certain control knob shapes, complete with illustration.
There are other standards pertaining to logical layout, movement in a logical sense of direction, etc. 14 CFR 25.777 and 25.779 are two pertinent ones if you want to read them. There’s also plenty of supporting guidance, but that’s getting into the weeds.
Petter from Mentour Pilot and Ben from Airline Pilot Performance talk about the incident, pointedly not speculating about this case, but discussing the procedures and issues related to this kind of takeoff, similar incidents in the past, etc.
What’s the difference between a pilot and a pizza?
A pizza can feed a family of four.
(told to me by a pilot friend)
One of the stunning things about airline pilot salaries is the vast, vast difference between the lowest tier at a small regional and the highest tier at a major carrier. The former may barely be able to support themselves, while the latter, if they’ve held the position for many years and climbed to the highest level of seniority, can become comfortably wealthy and accrue generous retirement benefits. Nothing wrong with that, as pay is associated with high skill and experience, but enormous salary differences I think are fairly rare in the salaried professions.
Another example is university professors. Starting salaries are low despite the demanding qualifications, and tenure these days is hard to get. But once you’ve established a strong reputation in your field, the sky’s the limit (no pun intended with airline pilots! 
) Well-credentialed professors can easily make more than their faculty deans or senior administrators. In free markets, people are paid what they’re worth to the institution.