Not to say that we don’t need pilots anymore, but that pretty much all the mechanics to fly a plane can be automated now, no? Also, with drone technology you can technically fly a plane remotely and it’s two lives saved in the event of a rare disaster and it would enable the FAA to better investigate if it was caused by human error vs. technical difficulties.
In: Engineering
In case of problems, having someone inside the plane able to look around in all directions quickly, not rely on a network connection that might drop, and being able to move physical switches/levers is absolutely vital. Computers are good, but they’re not very good when getting inconsistent reading if a sensor breaks.
Even if an airplane is fly-by-wire (the “steering wheel” doesn’t directly move anything, it’s just input to the computer) there are some physical overrides. Usually making the landing gear (wheels) drop in case they won’t come down on their own involves operating some crank. So you want someone to do that.
As for investigations, modern airplanes are already streaming information in realtime about their operation. With trained humans on board we also have recordings of what they say in the event of an… incident… which can help immensely, and we can feel a bit better that they’re watching over things when that signal goes down because they plane is half way across the Atlantic ocean.
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