> Yet, ironically, it appears that if we encouraged the human pilots to hand fly more, the accident rate would probably increase.
An interesting analog is the history of spin training in the US. Until the 1950s, a pilot was required to enter and recover from a 3 turn spin on their private pilot checkride. The thought was spins are dangerous, so pilots should show they can recover. The problem is that spins ARE dangerous, so a large number of students and instructors were spinning into the ground during training.
The FAA decided to remove the spin from the checkride. This effectively removed it from training. Many instructors lamented this, claiming the spin accident rate among private pilots would increase dramatically. They couldn't be expected to recover from something they had never trained for. The accident rate did change. It dropped sharply. But why?
The first part is the FAA accomplished its goal. Less pilots intentionally spinning meant less pilots spinning into the ground. But this didn't explain the drop in spin related accidents in nontraining situations.
It all came down to the airplanes. The airplane that most pilots train in is the same kind of airplane that most general aviation pilots fly: small, slow, single engine two or four seaters. Airplane manufacturers designed airplanes that could fulfill the needs of both the student pilot and weekend pilot. This meant a school could rent out its training airplanes, and a pilot could learn in the airplane he meant to own long term.
One of the requirements of the student's airplane was that it could be used for spin training. This meant making an airplane easy to spin. The problem here is clear in retrospect. You have a population of weekend pilots flying airplanes that are specifically designed to spin easily!
Removing the training requirement removed the manufacturing requirement. There is a clear difference in the design of airplanes before and after this change. Compare the Cessna 140 and 150, or the Piper Super Cub and Piper Cherokee. The later model is incredibly more difficult to spin than the earlier one.
Spin accidents in these post change airplanes are almost nonexistent. The FAA statistics are even misleadingly negative. They lump stall/spin accidents together. But, if you look into the accident reports in detail, you'll find a fully developed gyroscopic spin into the ground is incredibly rare.
This story can serve as an example for other interactions between regulations, operators and machine. Remove training requirements that do more harm than good. Focus on emergency avoidance instead of emergency recovery. Allow engineers to create the safest possible design, even one that doesn't pass archaic requirements.
No pilot, ship captain, or driver operates in a vacuum. If we want the best possible environment, we have to look at the environment as a whole.