Recent event clearly show that people should not be allowed to fly commercial aircraft. In fact, similar incidents happen regularly, except that they have not been mentioned in the media, probably because they took place in Africa, a region that does not seem to be of much interest to western media.
Nowadays, we are on the verge of having driver-less automobiles. Technology can apparently handle the possibility of pedestrians or bicyclists running out in front of the car, and the possibility that drivers of other cars do not respect the rules. We are also apparently able to handle the variable state of roads and streets.
Compared to what is required to drive a car, flying an aircraft is orders of magnitude easier, especially commercial aircraft. There are no sudden obstacles appearing in the air, or if there are, a human pilot would be less likely to handle them than a computer. Air traffic controllers make sure that other aircraft remain at a safe distance, horizontal or vertical, so there are no other aircraft to detect and take into account. Remains take-off and landing. I am convinced that a computer would do a much better job than a human pilot. With electronic landing systems it is quite simple, but even without such systems, it is fairly easy to land an aircraft. All that is needed is accurate position information with respect to the runway, and knowledge about various parameters of the aircraft itself, such as the altitude, the ground speed, and the angle with the runway.
Automating flights would have many advantages, aside from the fact that it would not be possible for a pilot to crash the aircraft, by error or on purpose:
More space would be available for passenger seats. The additional investment in technology would pay of after a few flights with a few more passengers.
It would be unnecessary to pay pilot salaries, obviously, but also to pay for expensive overnight accommodation in remote locations.
The cockpit of a commercial aircraft is full of costly presentation equipment that would become unnecessary. It would represent a significant decrease in the cost of building an aircraft.