IHL, absolutely agree that the root cause was not pilot, however the reason that we put people in the cockpit vice autoeverything is to deal with unusual situations. The way this emergency was dealt with was not according to regulations, was not logical, did not use good CRM and it led to a ditching. The ditching was diverted to a landing where the glide was not flown according to any published procedures and almost went off the runway down a cliff and into the ocean. The engines failed well above profile to make that landing, excess energy was purposely maintained almost resulting in catastrophe.
I think pilot error played a huge part and pilot heroism played no part.