I am not ready to declare the AF447 crew to be incompetent, only their performance as incompetent. I can understand being a bit brain dead at 2AM.
(Seems to happens to me at work at 2AM routinely nowadays
)
A paragraph taken from the NTSB report on the AA landing incident in Jackson Hole seems to fit AF447 pretty well:
The incident highlights an issue that has arisen in recent accidents around the world: today's automated, reliable aircraft can breed complacency in pilots, the **** concluded.
A simultaneous series of events aboard the jetliner prevented its****** systems from functioning, the investigation found. The pilots, distracted by the initial failures, could have ********* had they manually ******* some of those systems, the agency concluded.
"This incident demonstrates that experienced pilots can become distracted during unusual events,"
.........and lose track of what is happening with the aircraft.