For the record, I'm posting this as an ex-FA with zero experience of flying an aircraft and just enough knowledge to be a nuisance. Caveats over, here we go...
- The aircraft started above the appropriate glide path and never actually seems to have been on it, despite indications from PAPI's and what one might (optimistically, it turns out) expect from somebody on the flight deck monitoring the profile.
- Flaps 30 was called for at a time when the aircraft speed was in excess of that appropriate for this setting.
- Autopilot settings were inappropriate and not fully understood by the crew.
- Despite all those wise heads in the cockpit, apparently nobody was monitoring airspeed or altitude.
- The weather conditions were perfect.
I guess that what I'm saying is this - On a perfect day, four pilots watched the aircraft fly itself into the ground: I can't think of any circumstances under which this is acceptable, or for which they should be regarded as blameless. I cut my teeth working down the back on Boeing charters around the med, where our pilots routinely flew visual approaches with few navaids into such delights as Funchal, Samos, Mykonos and Gibraltar. I would like to go and the record and acknowledge a level of skill and professionalism involved that so far exceeds that visible in SFO that it is barely recognisable as the same industry.
I apologise for sounding cross: I think we have a right to expect better, much better and blaming the equipment just doesn't cut it!