And wouldn't we be better off if the airlines insisted that their pilots keep in regular hand flying practice without the extra baggage of flight directors and autothrottles? All these loss of control accidents stem from one main cause. And that is lack of pure flying competency brought upon by blind reliance on button pushing.
I can't totally agree with this, but you are probably not far off. I'm sure that there are many people who can remember flying hand-flown approaches to minimums on a regular basis into places like Jersey and Guernsey. Not only was the visibility poor, but the air was normally very rough and it always appeared to be close to crosswind limits - all on (sharp pencilled) minimum fuel. So no stress then! This was done with neither FD, A/P nor A/T. You got the knack in the end and got rather good at it but it was no safer for the passengers, especially if something went 'twang' or if there was problem elsewhere. Later on, having a "full house" so to speak, meant that you could monitor the aeroplane and interfere only to land (or go-around). As flight crew what we might not do enough is to practice visual, hand-flown, non-precision (unless you fly for RYR, that is) approaches and automatic landings each with and without A/T with enough regularity. By doing this you get to push all the knobs and buttons and get used to the aircraft "speaking to you." But this guy was just learning and the inbuilt traps got the two "minders." As for my airline, on the fleet I fly, if we have a problem it's getting your colleagues to use the autopilot.