Can we imagine a judge sentencing an offender in a sexual assault case: "the offender then exposed their penis..."
The unstated premise behind the use of plural pronouns is that if the sex of the pilot is identified then a reader will assume that the sex is relevant to what happened. I just don't believe that the premise is accurate.
All that happens is that the reports are made less comprehensible than they could be. Anything that diverts the reader away from the message, and many of us are diverted, is something which should be avoided.