Originally Posted by BOAC
...Now it is more important to be an 'ace' with the buttons...
The problem is the Asiana pilot was *not* an ace with the buttons -- he didn't understand how the autothrottle worked. He wasn't a whiz-kid "child of the magenta" unable to hand fly the plane when faced with an outright automation failure. Nothing failed.
Rather he did not understand the autoflight system or exploit its features. E.g, if uncomfortable with a non-precision approach without glideslope, they could have made a GPS precision approach. This was a published approach, and in fact the FAA urged this usage (after the accident):
Foreign airlines urged to use GPS at San Francisco
Total reliance on automation and inability to hand fly an approach in perfect conditions is not good. However if he just used the available automation, it would have landed OK. If you can't hand fly and *also* can't properly use automation, that is a bad combination.
If he was more proficient in hand flying but still did not properly understand the automation, an accident could still happen in other circumstances due to that lack of understanding.