incompetence
This whole thing reeks of total inexperience, lack of traing and poor airmanship. Good gosh, any experienced pilot flying this machine should be expected to manually input a visual centerline and fix for any runway. It is in the database. At 3 miles, the aircraft should be at 1000 feet. It doesn't stop there.
The flight director system has a 'Flight Path Vector' which is a function of the ADIRU. IF.....IF the crew were trained properly or just had interest in observing this aid during normal flight, they would know that keeping the vertical tail just slightly on the horizon, would provide a near 3 degree slope. The -200 and -300 FPV placement differ somewhat.
When I am training my candidates I make sure that those whom I teach, have a thorough understanding of how the system works.
As for black-hole syndrome, I disagree. There is enough peripheral lighting at KSFO and if the flight crew had properly set their systems to give decent situational awareness, things could have been different.
The problem will only continue to get worse as carriers grapple to find pilots to fill the hardware that is on order. Operators who rely on 'cadets' to fill seats can only expect the risk factor within their operations to increase. Yet, it is those carriers who invite well experienced and highly qualified personnel to interviews, only to tell them that they aren't wanted..no reasons given, in favor of taking some of the 250 hour wonders and turning them through the pilot mill.
Only time will tell