> Okay, so what's your answer? Stick yet another computer in to go wrong and fly the plane into the ground when it gets the wrong idea about a situation? Add ye

> Okay, so what's your answer? Stick yet another computer in to go wrong and fly the plane into the ground when it gets the wrong idea about a situation? Add yet more sensors to the car to prevent the driver steering away from an obstacle because it thinks they're not using their indicators yet? I’m not condemning the airline industry here, the safety conscious approach has done a good job over time especially in terms of redundancy. A major area of improvement is the way autopilots are communicating with pilots, but that’s a hard process. The car industry isn’t doing nearly as well in terms of redundancy etc so there’s many obvious areas of improvement through solid engineering without changing anything fundamental. That said, communication is again lacking. > Can you find an example of one that isn't down to gross mechanical failure, or just plain Operator Idiocy? Operator Idiocy isn’t some clearly defined line, an aircraft with a moderate fuel leak can look like idiocy after the fact but it’s an easy mistake to make. That’s exactly the kind of thing autopilots could catch not just from fuel sensors but how the flight characteristics change as the aircraft gets lighter, but aircraft have happily flown into trouble over the ocean.