@Check. You may not recognize it sir, but, I think you have answered your own question. Please see your third paragraph, quietly asking about hand-flying experience. In the SIM or the airplane, I suspect that those unfortunate crews had little or possibly no experience hand-flying their airplanes. "Follow the FD" is not horrible advice, but one must fully understand exactly what inputs the FD is capturing, how it computes instructions for you* and what you should and should not follow.
*Regardless of airplane type, your FD is a small, canned set of brains that can operate far faster than can your bio-brain. That does NOT mean that in extreme circumstances it will come up with a better solution than you can. It simply does its thing much faster. Perhaps a fair answer is, "If the FD's guidance looks reasonable to the experienced pilot. it probably is." If the FD's guidance does not look reasonable to your experienced eye, think for yourself and hand-fly, if you know how to do so. (Sorry, no snark intended, but how many of today's transport pilots have ever
hand-flown anything larger than a C172, past gear-up or in the terminal flare, in he SIM or in an airplane. (I'm not certain that the FM SIMS can even do it.) As far as I know, the only live, in-airplane flying of this type is done by Boeing and that other company's engineering test pilots,(
those kids CAN hand-fly and do so, regularly). Heavens no! I am not suggesting that you regularly hand-fly at high altitude cruise! I'm simply asking whether you and your colleagues have ever had the experience or been trained to do so. My best guess is no; if/when it may become necessary, you'd have no clue, with Boeing's partial FBW or the other company's full FBW. What do YOU think?
