[Gare]

> but they could fly into a mountain too if they felt like it

Don't know if you said that with this crash in mind or not, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

[ceejayoz]

Yes.

Fundamentally, if the pilot of an airliner wants to crash, they will be able to crash.

With very rare exceptions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

[dehrmann]

There's a lot of automation around commercial air travel, so autonomous commercial flying is an easier problem than city driving. The argument against it tends to be that you need a human behind the stick in cases like the miracle on the Hudson. The other side of this is it's about as likely a pilot intentionally crashes the plane.