Bearfoil
Which-ever way you look at this "chicken & egg" situation at 0210z, I am reminded of the the favorable CRM analysis made of the THY crew involved in the B738 accident at AMS. The investigation confirmed that they in fact did everything correctly in a tight ATC controlled environment, but were badly let down by an unexpected automation condition not documented nor trained for. Unfortunately their epitaph acknowledges that, "The combination of training standards and experience is not always enough to protect crews from the subtle effects of automation failures during automated, human-monitored flight", and there may well be some relevance to the events we are dealing with here.