Future of aviation is ‘flights without pilots’

To improve airline safety, maybe we need to remove the pilots.

That radical idea is decades away, if it ever becomes a reality. But following the intentional crashing of Germanwings Flight 9525 by the co-pilot, a long-running debate over autonomous jets is resurfacing. At the very least, some have suggested allowing authorities on the ground to take control of a plane if there is a rogue pilot in the cockpit.

The head of Germany’s air traffic control agency this week became the latest to raise such a prospect.