I don't think a passenger UAV would be as safe as a regular plane with a human pilot in the cockpit -- there's a lot of things a human pilot can do that today's computers can't. Remember, for example, the "Miracle on the Hudson"? Had a computer been in control instead of Capt. Sully (God bless him
), it would most likely have been "Disaster on the Hudson" instead. (Of course, I'm not an aviation expert, but I don't know of any flight computer that can factor wind and waves into an emergency ditching like a human pilot can.)