As I mentioned earlier, to me the most obvious parallel is the Kegworth air disaster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegwort...isaster#Causes

While the causes there are probably quite different, it basically boiled down to the crew interpreting signals incorrectly. Disconnecting the autothrottle and reducing power to the engines also temporarily alleviated vibration and other warnings from the damaged engine, making them think that the engine they shut down was the right one and the problem was gone, which of course cost them precious time.

It seems that in this case, it took the crew no more than 30 seconds to realize their mistake, but unfortunately by the time they could do anything about it they were already running out of altitude.

In situations like that, my guess is one of the first things that will be looked at is their training. In situations like that, you generally don't have time to think and your reflexes developed in training kick in. This could be a mistake, but it could also be an oversight in the company's procedures.