Contrary.
The technology exists to save this much sooner than 6 ft RA. It's not deployed yet.
The technology exists to avoid this from even starting to develop. A fistful of elements were there on the flight deck already but not all of the wide range.
Re-counted my chicken yesterday, 6 places in the A320 cockpit where the correct QNH was to be found as per a very unassuming run off the mill set of SOP. (less than Uplinker alludes to).
We're devotees for the not-so-much-of-a-pilots be not allowed to kill the travelling public.
The industry
A) de-skill the crew (check BA dual engine over London),
B) equip the planes with more human centric technology and imperfect solutions to bridge the newly built gap (gazilion cases, from nuisance TCAS, across the whole RNAV freakshow, to ad-extremis MCAS)
C) provide less training overall after putting all those additional systems in place, compared to the old up/forward/down/reverse days
and expect a constant improvement in professional conduct (=maintaining margins from undesirable aircraft state)
Does not work. Overwhelmed and undertrained.
Checkpoint one: PBN is a mandatory part of the Type Rating chckride. For many years, even so it is not listed on the endorsement anymore as a unique skill and becomes embedded.
Then: How many training departments actively teach that for Baro-VNAV 3D approach (this case), the altitude distance checks are futile, not part of the system or certification, and better not be done in lieu of the important stuff? (sound of brains exploding..., sure). There are critical items to verify, about 4 and QNH being one of the 2 more severe - does not have self-monitoring and alerting.
Checkpoint two: Wrong QNH kills immediately on NPA since before WWII and the invention of ATC. How come crews lost the sight of what separates them from TV headlines?
Checkpoint three:
Does your favourite EU lo-co run the annual line-flying checks on real airplane or have they given up 1 of the yearly training sessions (50%) to simulate a normal route flight (with a glitch), depriving the crew of a valuable learning opportunity?
It does not please us to observe and explain that while flying cannot be reduced to become fully deterministic, much of what we do so proudly can be algorithmized (in the non IT sense). That is where supervised automation (even remotely) will completely circumnavigate the challenges above at a lower overall industry cost.
And there you go again, the very last, single word is the crux of all this.