NTSB accident report “ During the flare, the aircraft travelled through an area of heavy rain, and visual contact with the runway environment was significantly reduced. There were numerous lightning strikes occurring, particularly at the far end of the runway”.
A320 Auto Land limits are ( need to see at least Cat 2 on cockpit FMA ) certified for wet runways with max winds of 30 HW and 20 CW.
If the winds exceed that , manual landing only.
As a rule , I would most definitely agree to always land manually in any dynamic weather like AF 358 faced to avoid a situation where the AP limits are exceeded.
Auto lands are really meant for low visibility situations like fog, not landings in thunderstorms,
My comments about auto land have more to do with ( benefit of hindsight ) that particular flight given the winds never exceeded the limits ( plane has wind display in cockpit even though tower wasn’t able to provide winds due to lightening hitting the tower wind system ) and it being obvious ( yes, they did a GA briefing but they had their minds set on landing due to the storm being on missed Approach as well ...they never asked for amended missed approach instructions I notice ) they were not going to do a GA.
The biggest problem they faced ( along with not calculating the poor braking landing distance, not applying reverse ASAP, taking the auto thrust off , taking the AP too early ) was flaring ( plus now with a slight TW ) while encountering heavy rain and being unable to see the runway well enough to land.
Had they done an auto land , it’s highly unlikely they would have gone off the end of the runway, even being late with reverse thrust. Winds never exceeded the AP limits.
Yes, I am sitting in my chair at home with the luxury of hindsight ( and my wife looking at me not getting chores done lol ) but it seemed apparent to me they were never going to do a GA and it’s a very real risk to expect heavy downpours in the final stages of landing in a thunderstorm ( Flare even ) making it very hard to see enough visually to land without risking using up too much runway flaring high.
The accident report indicated the aircraft radar showed lightening ( aka severe turb ) near the end of the runway.
No alternative missed approach instructions and lightening on the missed approach, they were committed to landing.
Forgot …..Auto land uses more runway but it would have prevented them flaring high and touching down 3800 feet down the runway.
Just saying what I would have done in their situation considering they were going to do the Approach and land ( which they should not have done ) anyways.