Unmanned flights of increasing complexity are being demonstrated every day. Helo flying, the last bastion has been breached!
https://newatlas.com/military/black-...-without-crew/
Garmin have an emergency autonomous autoland function for certain GA aircraft. It requires no pre-programming of destination and runway choice. Press the button and next thing you know you’re sitting at the end of a runway at an airport the system has chosen, with park brake on and engine shut down.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/av...nd-passengers/
There is probably no technical reason today why any aircraft can’t be retrofitted with equipment which would allow unmanned operation from gate to gate. Engine start, to shutdown.
As for emergencies? For the most part we are robots… Fly the aircraft, identify the problem, call for the checklist..etc.
Agreed there has been the occasional outlier which required inspirational problem solving by the crew outside the remit of the checklist. You can be sure researchers, designers and engineers are working feverishly to eliminate the likelihood of such unimagined combinations of failures.
I think that once 100% reliable, redundant and robust two way data comms can be guaranteed, the era of manned airliners will come to an end. I wonder how close they are to achieving this.