Guys (girls?)
We're in danger of solving the wrong problem here!
What makes you think he wasn't able to hand fly the aeroplane? His middle names could be Chuck and Yeager, but even if he hand flew every single approach, how many times would he have had the opportunity to 'fly' a go-around after landing????
I bet there aren't many of us here that have done one for real. Hopefully we never have the requirement to. Fly a thousand manual approaches and it won't help you in this scenario one bit!
Knowledge and training (that means in the sim) is the only answer. Along with pre-briefing at moderately frequent intervals, such as when you operate to short runways, to at least keep the procedure fresh in your mind for when the requirement comes out of the blue, like here!
This pilot shouldn't have pushed the TOGA buttons on the ground
AT ALL! If that's what happened, the chimp had instantly selected the
WRONG motor program! He shouldn't have 'monitored' the thrust levers at all, he had to firewall them!
It's nothing to do with manual flying skills per se! It's about practicing
THIS PARTICULAR MANOUVRE!
Solve other problems by all means. But they aren't what caused this accident!
The chimp is alive and well in every single one of us!! When we lived in caves he kept us alive. In a modern jet we need to watch him like a hawk!