When you do the circling in the Airbus, you are most likely not able to see the runway during the 45 degree brake away from the centreline. Once you turn downwind, that is the time when you have to see the runway.
Airbus recommends to disconnect the autopilot latest on the downwind. It is normally flown at flaps3 gear down. You can choose flaps full landing and put the full flaps somewhere on the base. The turn has to be finished at 400 feet at full config. In case of windy conditions, you might decide to land flaps 3, in which case you would be configured for a landing quite early and your work load would be less on base. But nevertheless, the circling should be done within 1.7 or 2 miles of the runway. That is why you time only 30 seconds when you are braking away at 45 degrees from the final track. You start timing when wings are level. If the aircraft is covering 3 miles a minute, than in 30 seconds it should position you to the right distance (strong winds would influence it a little bit). But to be 12 miles away, you would have to fly for 4 minutes. That is a lot of time.
I am not sure, if they were not trying to do some circling/visual hybrid approach. But who knows.