Manual flight - manual thrust. That's the way it is tought throughout Lufthansa.
Just day before yesterday I landet a heavy A340-600 at a fairly small US airport that I happen to know quite well. The approach end of the runway is set in a dip with a ridge and the edge of a forest just before it. In other words, winds can be tricky there. Plus the temperature at our arrival time in the afternoon was 34°C, so the sun had heated the touchdown zone quite a bit. Taking all this into account I added 5 Knots to the Vref in order not to come low on energy.
Overhead the concrete the sinkrate still increased remarkably and I had to yank the side stick back to its mechanical stop to break it. Appearently I did it just in the right splitsecond, because it turned out to be a greaser. It could have turned out very differently, too. Especially if I had used autothrust all the way to touchdown, it might have pulled back the power just that very moment when I needed it most. While I don't think I would have broken off the tail, it would have made a loud bang at least...
What I'm saying is: even when you know what's coming, hot and high in a heavy jet is demanding, and that's without A/T playing nasty tricks on you. I'm really glad that these colleagues were able to walk away from their mishap and I wish them all the best. Although everything points to a hard landing right now I do not believe the main contributing factor was lack of skill on their part. They are well trained and do have more short sectors and fewer three man legs than we do on the mainline longhaul.
Regards,
DL