I'm familiar with LJU and the point they turned base, along with their altitude was never going to work. There's no illusion here - it's a breakdown of SA, poor decision making and stupid bravado to continue with the GPWS going off.
A4, I agree - I wasn't meaning that it was any illusion that caused the incident.
The ages of the crew involved would seem to indicate a high experience level
Age can be misleading in this respect. The commander of AF447 was 58 but surprisingly only had a total of 11,000 hours.
Flight Deck and Cabin Crew Information AF447