I will expand on my point.
UAV's are more frequently operated by people who have never stepped foot in a cockpit. Call them pilots if you want too.
"there will never be less than 2 pilots on the flight deck of a high capacity jet. Its the cheapest thing in the cockpit."
The pilots are the only cost in the cockpit. Is there anyone else up there earning a salary?
"If they sat there with their hands in their laps after hitting the captain call button the aircraft would likely have meandered on until the captain could regain his seat FFS!!"
Chimbu,
Depending on the precise nature of the failure causing problems with air data information, the bus could be in a situation where the very last thing it would have done is “meander”. I suspect you have never flown the bus? It may have been a situation where simple lack of airspeed was only part of the problem.