I was a little bit imprecise. Because the article was talking about a stationary obstacle, literally a wall, I was still talking about stationary objects when I said that airplanes don't avoid obstacles. The autopilot of an airplane will not avoid any kind of stationary obstacle, not even a mountain. It can certainly be done; several militaries use terrain–following guidance in both airplanes and missiles. But there’s nothing about the word “autopilot” that should cause people to think that the car will avoid stationary obstacles. An autopilot follows a route and that’s it.

Some aircraft can avoid other aircraft under some circumstances but those aren’t stationary obstacles and unlike random walls that people build, or mountains, they are all tagged with transponders.