.To a large extent, IMO AF447 and Asiana were "set up" by their employers.
Total rubbish, in other words thousands pilot are being 'set up' by their employers every day.
Such an illusion could be even more convincing if most of the runway lights were also obscured by the hill.
There was an accident years ago on a night approach to one of Hawaiian airports, crew of a business jet lost sight of PAPI but interpreted this that a small cloud got between them and the PAPI, in fact they were wrong, there was no cloud, they were too low. Everyone perished.