I think the article makes the mistake of focussing on the tree and forgetting the forest.
The fate of AF447 was terrible and it inarguable that poor actions by the pilot significantly contributed to that incident. Automation probably played a role in that pilot’s insufficient skills.
However before talking about how all planes should be flown manually it is worth remembering that there are almost 1300 A330s in service, flying every day, a stupendous number of flying hours. From my brief research there have been two fatal incidents due to pilot error.
Removing the autopilot systems would almost certainly result in more incidents. So while it may have helped the people on board AF447 it would only do so by condemning far more to death.
This has to be kept in mind when drawing parallels with car automation. Automated cars will kill people. However the starting point is 1.25 Million vehicle deaths per year worldwide, not zero. So killing a few is arguably ok so long as they kill less than manually driven cars.
