[markbnj]

I'm not a pilot, but from what I have read many pilots actually prefer mechanical linkage to the control surfaces. Sullenberger even indirectly blamed fly-by-wire systems (in this case the lack of a link between pilot and copilot controls) for the crash of Air France 447: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-france-flight-447s-lessons-...

[PaulHoule]

One of the most popular features of Boeing aircraft is that there is a mechanical linkage between the yokes of the pilot and copilot.

Boeing's modern planes (not the legacy 737) have fly by wire where there is still a mechanical connection between the yokes. Thus you have the nice shared feel, but you have the benefits of fly-by-wire.

There have been accidents where fly-by-wire has been part of the problem but there have also been failures of the old mechanical linkage systems. Airliners have had active systems to cancel out unstable modes for a long time (e.g. to suppress "Dutch Roll" on the old 727)

The A320 has particularly been plagued by extreme "human error" situations where people crashed the plane after seemingly trying to crash it. For instance the first passenger flight involved a stunt that resulted in a crash. later on New Zealand regulators who were investigating fly-by-wire glitches tried to provoke the fly-by-wire system into failing when they were approaching a runway and they wound up dead.