But also have a multiply redundant remote control system for emergencies the autopilot can't handle. So if something crops up, a crew of pilots trained to deal with nothing but emergencies can take over remotely.
It might be fair to say a human has to think a lot like a computer to fly a plane, while a computer has to think like a human to drive a car.
Speak for yourself...
Problem is that we don't know about the number of accidents avoided thanks to human interventions. Also, remote pilots will never be sure about the reliability of information transmitted from a failing aircraft.
On Wikipedia, I'm Enigmasoldier.
In some ways, having the pilots outside the plane would be an advantage in an emergency. It's much easier to trust the gauges (which is almost always the right thing to do) when you aren't experiencing any of the physical sensations in the cockpit. There have been countless cases where pilots trust their own sense of up/down/left/right (in zero visibility conditions), and ignored the relevant cockpit indicators, to disastrous result...
Furthermore, pilots are far, far better at detecting that a problem even exists. There's a heluva lot of information you can get from sound, vibration, smell, the 'feel' of the stick, view out the window, etc. Heck, even going back into the cabin and eyeballing the wings and engines have saved airliners from disaster. A Concorde prevented a crash this way.
Software, on the other hand, usually fails to recognize that anything has gone wrong, and pretty much never is able to correct itself, and certainly won't think of anything creative.
[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-of-the-most-dangerous-jobs-...
[2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/aerial-robots/robocopters-...
Will never happen:
0. Guidance signal loss 1. Guidance signal jamming 2. Guidance signal hijacking 3. Pilots on the ground don't have a vested interest with passengers, so the survival instinct won't necessarily kick in because they're not there. 4. Cost of mitigating all of the above would be much more than the risks of such a drastic change.