"Be careful what you are promoting, Uplinker. It is comments like this that have new f/os playing with the FMC at 200' on final approach (visual or otherwise).
This was a visual approach. The big picture is outside, and not in the cockpit. At most you need a quick glance at the airspeed every 10 seconds or so, that's all. The NFP should be making a call out of 'on profile' or not. And we all trust the NFP, don't we?
Remember power and attitude? A stable aircraft on profile will remain, well, stable and on profile. And if you cannot feel an engine rollback or a windshear change through the seat of your pants, well perhaps you are one of those who should have gone into the bicycle courier business"
Silver strata whilst I very much respect your opinion, I think there is a huge difference between a pilot going in to the FMC at 200' and a pilot scanning his airspeed, VSI and ED coming down the approach as Uplinker seemed to promote.
Even on a visual approach, that basic scan has to remain surely, I'm not talking about a complete heads in, but as you said a glance every few seconds. A stable aircraft on profile coming down a G/s is one thing, one where the power remains constant and the attitude is changing to get the "picture" is another.
I don't think anyone at this stage can conclusively point the finger at anything. Particularly not the pilots, because if some unknown mechanical failure has occurred or other phenomena then in a few days time we could be commending the pilots fantastic flying ability on these very pages. If the investigation shows pilot error, then this should become about identifying why those errors occurred. None of us are infallible, and none of us perfect, however learning from others mistakes can make us more aware of those short comings.