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by will_asouka 4724 days ago
Autoland is often used (mandatory in very low visibility) but requires 2 humans to monitor in case of equipment failure. To develop autoland with sufficient redundancies to require no monitoring, and install accompanying ground equipment at every commercially used airfield is way more expensive than training humans to land aircraft. Airframe loss is an insurable risk at market price.

Presently, the numbers favour accepting human error.

1 comments

I wonder how the failure rate for autoland compares to that of human-controlled landings (specifically on the Boeing 777). I'm fine with having the human as a backup, but if autoland on a particular plane has a lower failure rate, I prefer to trust my life to autoland.