>The guy was alone operating 2 frequencies, had an emergency of another aircraft going on… is not so easy as many commenters from the armchair are insinuating

I'm not saying its easy, I'm actually specifically saying it's such a hard job we should have automated most of it away ages ago. If the only thing stopping an accident like this is an ATC employee, this _will_ happen in the future.

They came up with rail signals long before the idea of a computer even existed. It's hard to believe voice only communication of routes and runway access is the best path forward. Especially when passenger airliners are involved.

Automation emboldens policy makers to reduce human count because of the perceived increase in safety. This results in less eyes and brains monitoring for situations of automation failure or abnormalities. The corner stone of aviation safety over the last several decades has been having multiple, highly trained and experienced operators on station monitoring aviation systems to catch those moments when something goes wrong. Additionally, a culture where those operators are encouraged to speak up and be heard when something goes wrong without fear of being reprimanded is essential.

Automation is fantastic. We use it extensively in aviation. However, the long tail of 9s in reliable requires constant vigilance and oversight because anything that can go wrong will.

Who's entering the signal that the runway is locked? What if they screw up?

There are so many failure modes with vehicles and planes using the same tarmac that I fail to see how anything would be worth developing here that doesn't eliminate that requirement altogether.