The weather was terrible, it was night, and the guy hadnt slept in 18+ hours. These are not the best conditions to be practicing your manual approaches, and I would argue that putting in the AP and monitoring would have been a better option.
Indeed, very true and I would say the same.
Page 44 states one of the ACTIVE FAILURES as - "The first officer did not fly the aircraft accurately during the final approach".
Which is why he needs the practice....!
pprune towers - I see your point that Mandatory autopilot use is incompatable with some emergency situations. In that case, change my wording to "AP SHOULD be used WHEN AVAILABLE...".
Except that it is always available until the time when you have an MEL item, or emergency/abnormal situation and then you have to hand fly with no practice, making it very dangerous indeed.
How about "use the autopilot when prudent", which should be covered under the "operate the aeroplane safely" rule which all airlines have written somewhere, but in different words.
Currency is realised to be very important in all aviaiton, so much so that we mandate it for pilots no matter what their experience. Unless we are current at hand flying, we are eroding safety margins for when we need our skills. You can't always practise in good weather, and sometimes you need to practise in cloud for instance, because it is simply different to flying on a gin clear day.
The example above would not be one of those times though.