Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Another point is that if the approach conditions are blustery with significant crosswind and turbulence, it is useful to take manual control much earlier than 470' agl. 7 miles gives one time to "get in the groove" of blustery weather conditions and get your responses up to speed before getting to short finals and the flare
Agreed on this one. However, many operators behind what used to be the Iron Curtain have an interesting attitude towards FDM parameter deviations, as well as towards the difference between an honest mistake and a violation. Which, in turn, often translates into reluctance to fly manually on part of many crews. It gets to the point where even some instructors frown upon pilots flying manually above 1000 feet AAL. While I'm in no way affiliated with the operator from the case study and have no idea whether that's the case with them, I wouldn't rule it out completely as I've heard of numerous such examples from other outfits in broadly the same part of the world.