It is very interesting to note that none of the responses involved the "stick and rudder" aspects of flying. From a safety perspective, this is right on target since it is hard to think of an accident in which the pilot couldn't fly the aircraft.
Well, he is dead wrong there. That must have been written before loss of control overtook CFIT as the major cause of accidents. It doesn't take much searching to find countless examples where the accident happened because the pilot was a lousy pilot at hand flying but probably a real ace on the automatics. One recent example of many. Flash Air 737 hitting the water at 400 knots plus when nothing wrong with the airplane and the pilots still trying to engage the automatic pilot as he hit the sea.