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And from that link you provided:

>>Was just talking with a NWA mechanic about the report of visible flames etc. coming from the back of an engine and he maintains that usually indicates "shelling" of an engine; ie: the expulsion of blades resulting from an uncontained or contained failure.

His point was there is no way to know and if there was molten metal coming out the back, the possibility of damage to either the flaps or horizontal stab is distinct, and if there was damage (in the form of skin damage), then over ten hours the potential of that damage to propogate was certain. <<

Like we said. . .he did not KNOW if there was damage and to what extent.

What you are missing is that the engine did not "fail." It was shut down. They contemplated restarting it even, but decided to continue on with it shut down after consulting the mechanics at BA. There was no "molten metal" shooting out the back. No blade failure. It was apparently a simple "compressor stall" which to the uninitiated looks a lot worse that it is. Flames will shoot out the front and back at the same time and the engine will show an increased EGT momentarily. They could have restarted it, but shut it down and continued on instead. It's not an uncommon occurrence.

Here's a video of a series of compressor stalls. It looks and sounds a lot worse than it is. Click on the image to see the movie.