I have finally started reading the entire report in detail. With the smoke so bad, the F/O was basically blind when it came to tuning radios and seeing the flight instruments. It appears that he could get his face close enough to the MCP to be able to see at least some of it as even near the end, he was able to arm the approach.
Unlike some planes, the 747 pilot sits quite far away from the instrument panel which is usually at arms length with a glareshield that sticks out quite far and sort of blocks you from being able to press your face against the flight instrument display. It would be near impossible to get your face close enough to the instrument displays to see anything while still seated. This explains why he kept asking for his present altitude, heading and speed. Being unable to change radios he had to stay on a different frequency from ATC and relay information.
That he was able to actually get toward and fly over the Dubai airport seem amazing for someone with less than 100 hours on type. I notice that he did fly the 757/767 so that probably help in terms of some familiarity with MCP controls and possibly radios.
Doing most stuff would have to be in the blind with possible exception of some or most MCP knob movement. These knobs are each shaped differently for speed, heading, and altitude so that they can be recognized by feel while flying. I know the feel of the heading select knob and the Altitude knob and the speed knob as they are quite different. But it would still be extremely difficult to correctly manipulate the controls properly when certain square buttons need to be pushed and displays on the MCP for selected speed, altitude and heading need to be read. I think if the MCP alone can be read in its entirety, with practice someone could work out an autoland without being able to see the flight instruments or a ditching could be attempted by descending to 200 feet over the water capturing the altitude and then configuring and descending at 100 fpm into the water. Just remember to set the local altimeter setting on both sides(once again near impossible for the left side) so maybe selecting transponder #2 might work).
As I read the report, I become convinced that if put all of a sudden in the same position without previous real thought or practice and planning, most of us likely would have crashed as well trying to do this in the blind whether ditching or trying an approach. Perhaps a good amount of experience would have made it possible but when you can't even see what you are selecting, it would be extremely time consuming to figure it all out.
As the report states, "The aircraft was not equipped with an alternative viewing system to allow the pilot(s) to view the instruments and panels in the smoke filled environment." I have actually been in the demonstration booth at an NBAA convention for the EVAS smoke vision system as seen in the link below. It really works in an environment where you cannot see a think a few inches from your face. See link below for a demo(start at 1:20) but the video only shows for a couple of seconds the actual difference this system makes.
As I was thinking about this this morning, something occurred to me as I was looking right at a potential desperate solution to be able to find something to be able to make things barely visible again.
It was my large clear plastic water bottle. Dump out the water(and depending on the bottle, you may be able to barely see what you are selecting as you need to look at various radio frequencies, a section of the PFD flight instrument display, or the radio panel. No guarantees but it is worth a try and might actually work.