All this FMC/GPS stuff is true .. but we are missing a fundamental truth. They did not brief for the visual .. it was the all time classic which features in so many safety reports .. "we will shoot the visual".
If you are downwind with everything looking good and you are offered the visual and you have not briefed it - simple ... do not do it! You might save max 2 minutes flight time by doing the visual but it takes far less than 2 minutes for everything to go badly wrong.
This was a failure of SOPs or a failure to abide by SOPs and very very bad airmanship that came very very close to a lot of people dying.
Now, isn't that against what skygods had preached? Occupants at the pointy end should be able to shoot a visual no matter what! Remember all the pontificating after OZ 214 at SFO. Hey imho, once on downwind, all professional pilots should be able to conduct a visual approach without all the long yada yada yada briefings.
The PF and PM should be able to seamlessly change their game plan to accomplish the visual approach with the minimum of hassles. All the convoluted briefings are going to screw up more things. All the extensive FMC manipulations ( except for selecting the correct runway + airport ), MCP set ups and parrot like FMA call outs should be precluded. Get the AP/FDs off, both PF and PM looking in and out to positively identify the airfield, monitor proper profile, configurations and watch out for bogies and obstacles and get the checklists done! Do like what we do 10-40 years ago during our PPL/CPL twin engine training.
