Well, the autopilot was disabled, and the flight director (which at a 1 sentence level is a visual indication of what the autopilot would do) was trying to keep

Well, the autopilot was disabled, and the flight director (which at a 1 sentence level is a visual indication of what the autopilot would do) was trying to keep the plane level at the configured altitude The flight director did the right thing — displayed how it would manage level flight The pilot did the wrong thing - copied the misconfigured flight director instead of flying the plane