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...
What about autoland using GPS?
A/T would primarily be to maintain the correct landing speed.
The NTSB said they had good steady speed of 161mph, so it appears the autothrottle was working.
If they weren't using GPS, they'd need some way of inputting altitude control based on what they saw from the PAPI while everything else was automated.