[webreac]

Well, I have worked in nuclear domain and I am now working in aircraft domain. In nuclear, the machine has to protect from human mistakes. In aircraft, the human has to recover from machine failure. The way of thinking is completely opposite even if the purpose is the same: prevent accidents.

All the aviation (and space) experience is full of stories where unforeseen events have been well handled by creative humans in hopeless situations (maybe thanks to adrenaline). When you are remote, you are dependant of all the associated issues (communication failure, instruments failure), you may be obliged to follow procedures even if you think they are not adapted to the unforeseen circumstance. When you are in the plane, you can feel acceleration, see outside, and do the best to save your live.

Perhaps, I am wrong and your analogy with elevator is the correct one.

I think there is a long way before remote piloting. The first experiences with drones were far from crash proof.

[pinaceae]

actually pilots are being actively trained to ignore their senses and trust the instruments. instrument-rated pilots do exactly that (=all commercial pilots).

the human eyes do not work in fog, night, rain, etc. the human ear does not help at all in trying to distinguish between acceleration and climbing - both press you into your seat. the classic stall is exactly that, the pilot does not realize the angle of the plane.

you can see something similar at play in modern surgery. robotic instruments are taking over as they will not shake, ever. and surgeons can suddenly rotate in and out easily, even remotely. no one does LASIK manually...

and don't forget, the heroic anecdotes of human intervention might be strong survivor bias. maybe the problem would not have been there in the first place. or do not counterweigh all the fuck ups human pilots have caused.