Relying too much on automation

Nate Rawlings has a Time article about flying:

A group of flight-safety experts is warning that US pilots may be getting rusty on their manual flying skills, and the era of automation is to blame. A new report from the Federal Aviation Administration puts the blame on autopilot systems, revealing that some commercial airline pilots may not grasp new flying maneuvers, and may be reluctant to switch off the systems during risky circumstances, putting passengers in danger.
The report’s authors blame an “automation addiction” for costing pilots some of their basic flying skills. Pilot errors are thought to have contributed to several crashes in the past five years, including one in San Francisco in July of 2013, where the pilot had only a few dozen hours on the aircraft he was piloting. While the report doesn’t deny that automation has made flying safe, it raises concern about the amount of data presented to pilots by the on-board computer systems— an “information overload” that could lead to missed messages or warning signs.
The study, which calls for more manual flying in both simulators and in actual airplanes, will be released by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta this week.

There's more in an article by Tom Costello of NBC News:

Commercial airline pilots rely too much on automation in the cockpit and are losing basic flying skills, warns a new Federal Aviation Administration report due out this week.
And so-called “automation addiction”, endemic in the highly automated fight cockpits of today's high-tech commercial airlines, could pose safety risks, experts say. “Pilots sometimes rely too much on automated systems", says the report, which was written by an outside panel of experts. And some pilots “lack sufficient or in-depth knowledge and skills” to properly control their plane’s trajectory, the report states.
Basic piloting errors are thought to have contributed to the crash of an Air France Airbus A330 plane over the Atlantic in 2009, which killed all 228 aboard, as well as a commuter plane crash in Buffalo, New York that same year.
Potential piloting errors are also under investigation in connection with the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International this summer.
Captain Karen Kahn, who's been a pilot at a major US airline for 36 years, said she worries that some younger pilots are relying too heavily on auto-pilot systems.  "We are a little bit wary, which I think is a good thing" she said of the computerized controls as someone who started flying in manual mode and later moved to automation. "We recognize that in the end we have to fly the airplane. It's there to help you,” she said of auto-pilot. "It’s not the actual commander of the airplane, you are! So you need to use it as an adjunct. It's like another crew member helping you, but it's not the be all end all."
Tom Casey, a retired airline pilot who flew the giant Boeing 777, said he once kept track of how rarely he had to touch the controls on an auto-pilot flight from New York to London. From takeoff to landing, he said he only had to touch the controls seven times. "There were seven moments when I actually touched the airplane— and the plane flew beautifully,” he said. “Now that is being in command of a system, of wonderful computers that do a great job— but that is not flying. It’s no longer in the interest of safety, mainly because training protocols have shifted their emphasis from airmanship to computer technology,” Casey said. Real flying, said Casey, was exemplified by Captain Chesley Sullenberger, who famously landed his US Airways plane without engines on the Hudson River and saved all the passengers, in what came to be known as the Miracle on the Hudson.
The new report calls for more manual flying by pilots in the cockpit and in simulations.
Nearly all people connected to the aviation industry agree that automation has helped to dramatically improve airline safety over the past thirty years, but now even the FAA and the pilots union agree that pilots need to avoid “automation addiction” and keep their manual flying skills fresh.
The two-hundred-plus-page report, commissioned by the FAA and written by industry, labor, academic, and government experts, is expected to be released at a meeting of industry representatives by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.
In advance of that meeting, the FAA issued a statement to NBC News:

“The FAA has made advances in pilot manual flying skills, improved pilot certification standards, advanced pilot training program requirements, and more, and today's report validates those efforts.”

The FAA said the agency and industry representatives will work on next steps to make training programs stronger in the interest of safety. 

Rico says pilots should be required to know how to fly...