Mutual funds, autopilots and air crashes

"Pilot response led to AirAsia crash into Java Sea" ran a headline by CNN back in late 2015. A year into the crash, investigators had uncovered what had caused the crash of AirAsia QZ8501. The plane's Rudder Travel Limiter (RTL) had malfunctioned multiple times, which eventually led the autopilot to disengage. This forced pilots to steer the plane manually, resulting in miscommunication between the captain and co-pilot. Simply put, the crew was untrained to deal with such a situation. Aviation safety statistics show that over the last two decades, more than 1,800 air passengers and crew lost their lives because pilots had lost control of fully functional aircraft. In fact, this has become an established category of air accidents. Earlier, till the 1970s or 80s, air accidents were generally due to aircraft malfunctions of some sort. As aircraft reliability and flying aids have improved, pi