When did they call the FAA supervisor? What was discussed?
Has this guy been identified & interviewed? From previous posts I've gleaned that the '28R Bridge approach' is used when 28L is in use so as to provide increased separation during the initial approach. Is that correct, or is it purely noise abate reasons? If the former is true, and 28L was closed, why give a more difficult visual approach at night than a simple straight forward ILS?
It has been agreed that this incident started many miles and minutes before; in the cruise, when the NOTAMS had not been reviewed and not included in the brief, apparently. There is much talk about the confusion created by what kind of approach was given. Possible. There is speculation about tiredness/fatigue, but then it was countered by the natural kick-in of stimulation by a challenging visual approach. Been there done that many times: it is correct. (We do not yet know at what point the A/P was a disconnected). What ever the approach given & flown it still remains that the route was to bring you onto a visual finals that is defined by lots of well known and often experienced lights. IMHO the type of 'Bridge' approach is a red herring. Green lights DO NOT = runway. Never and nowhere in the world. The confusion over the landing area started inside 4nm. The root cause lies well before that, but after the FMC brought them on to a visual finals 2 sets of eyes & brains managed to become confused.
I'd love to hear the CVR from 10nm out. "can you see the runway? yeah it's over there. Oh yep, go it." a few nm later. "do we land over the lights or on the right? Er, left is closed, I think, so over to the right." "You sure? I think so." etc. etc. all the way down to 100'.
GREEN lights DO NOT equal runway. Saying there are lights? on the runway, are we cleared to land is just astonishing. Lights on the runway or not, GREEN lights do not equal a landing area. And 2 pilots. Where was PM looking. Who was PM, LHS/RHS, and when were they under manual control?