Sid, I get what you are saying. On a completely dark instrument panel, when you're looking directly at a screen focusing pretty much on the CAD display, then...yeah, those indications are pretty hard to miss. But the aircraft was VFR, over a city that was fairly well-lit. So there was probably plenty of light in that cockpit at the time. Not only that, but the evidence kind of shows that Dave was *not* looking at his instrument panel.
*IF* we believe that the EC-135's fuel quantity measuring and display system were functioning properly (and no concrete evidence was brought forth to suggest they were not), then how could Dave have *not* noticed his Supply tanks draining to zero? (What did he think was causing the low-fuel gongs?) Answer: He wasn't looking at the panel; his attention was directed somewhere else.
He cancelled the low-fuel gong multiple times. It is inconceivable to me that during that time he would not have looked at the gauges at least once! How is that possible? How do you misinterpret that graphic fuel quantity depiction?
Maybe...and like I said it's just a guess...but maybe when he reached up and turned the Transfers back on he wasn't even looking inside the cockpit (thus he didn't see the indications of Supply/Prime pump activation). We surely don't have any other plausible explanation why such a good pilot would make such an awful mistake. Maybe that's what bothers me the most about this crash.
And about Dave's auto? Like all of us, my ego makes me want to sit here and think to myself and promise you that *I* surely would have done a better job in that situation. But I cannot guarantee that. Perhaps I would have done the same thing, basically sitting frozen on the controls for those eight brief seconds. I like to believe I'm Chuck Yeager/Aaron/Norris all rolled into one awesome human bean. Most of the time though I'm just Chuckles the Clown. I cut that Dave guy a lot of slack.