How would the pilots use what they see (PAPI), with autopilot and autothrottle? I've seen nothing yet about whether they were using GPS.
NTSB said they were briefed on LOC 18, so I assume that’s the approach they used.
AFAIK, you don’t use A/P when landing unless you are doing some form of Autoland with ILS, which wouldn’t apply here.
With PAPI you just need to watch the lights. You don’t need anything but your eyes on the runway and your hands/feet on the controls.
A/T would primarily be to maintain the correct landing speed.
But I’m not any sort of pilot...
Looks like 6/24 has precision approach capability.
18/36 does not. 6/24 was closed at the time, so this was a non-precision approach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_approach#Non-precision_approaches_and_systems
Having the A/P and A/T on until the crash sort of suggests that they were not set up correctly, and that the crew allowed the A/P to fly them into the ground...
Pending further/more accurate info, of course...