[dragonwriter]

> I don't see why a human has to do this.

Because automated systems fail.

> Even if they do, I don't see why it can't be done with an awareness system like the F-35 helmet.

Because most aircraft aren't F-35s and expenses and fallible systems that are appropriate and sensible for combat aircraft that may have to operate in conditions in which civilian aviation would not aren't necessarily something you want to make civilian aviation dependent on in conditions in which, with sensible things like straight runways, it would not be.