Comment by teractiveodular
2 months ago
Flights are operable by 1 person, and this is in fact the normal state of affairs in general aviation. The second person on commercial aircraft is there mostly for redundancy, although obviously having another pair of hands makes things easier.
Redundancy is definitely part of it, but 2 people also make things much much easier and reduce accident likelihood when unexpected things start happening and the workload increases. Lets say there is some severe mechanical issue, you want someone to run through a checklist to address the mechanical issue and fly the plane which is likely now out of autopilot, and another to find alternate places to land, etc.