Originally Posted by
Torquetalk
...the lack of familiarity and confidence to engage an upper mode is clearly a contributor to the accident.
It is unlikely he knew what buttons to push, simple as that. I used to see it all the time with S76 recurrent trainees in the simulator. Pilots with ATP tickets who would not only struggle to fly it manually on instruments, they didn't know what buttons to push when the manual flying got a bit tough for them. The key to solving that problem was to demonstrate the pushing of buttons and insist on never hands flying the thing. Simulator time is expensive and there is no time allocated on a recurrent course to teach pilots with IR tickets basic IF.