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Side question: do you think one day commercial pilots aren't necessary anymore, i.e. totally unmanned commercial airlines? If so, how far away in the future are they?

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There has been some talk of remote piloting (like drones,) but personally, I want whoever is flying the plane to have some skin in the game. Unmanned - fully autopilot aircraft are certainly possible and I sure Boeing probably has a Skunkworks looking into it, but I’ve seen enough source code over the years that I would have a hard time trusting an autonomous airplane unless they had escape pods. Autonomous airplanes seen to be solving a problem that doesn’t seem critical to solve – given the statistically exceptional safety record of commercial air travel. Pilot error is a very rare cause of airliner crashes.

I think electric airplanes powered by Mr. Fusion mini nuclear reactors would be the future I’d like to see!

>Pilot error is a very rare cause of airliner crashes.

Is that overall, or as a percentage of all airliner crashes? Because another commenter stated that human error is responsible for most of the crashes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14741726

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