California drought though is mainly caused by the lack of snow in the Sierras which isn't replenishing underground aquifers as it should. That lack of snow is directly correlated with global warming :(
AF447 is more complicated than just that sidestick issue, if you look at the accident report closely.
The contributing factors were loss of outside air temperature and airspeed sensors because of icing, a dark moonless night above the ocean, and flying/falling outside of the operating range of the stall horn (when they pitched the nose down, they started recovering from the stall, airspeed went up, and the stall horn activated. when they pitched up, they went back outside of the operating range, and the horn muted).
A big contributing factor as well was that in an airbus, in normal operating conditions, pulling the stick all the way back will configure the aircraft for the best rate of climb (which can be different from just putting the elevator in full climb conditions). Due to the pitot tubes being iced up, the flight computers were in Direct mode (where movement of the sidestick is directly translated in movement of the flight controls, without computer intervention), which didn't help.
Since this is limited to one passenger only, would this allow for drivers that have two-door cars? I'd love to use this all the time if that's the case :)
There is no basically in an aircraft accident. If you wish to make such a statement, please explain what actually happened in this flight (icing of the pitot tubes, deactivation of normal flight control law for the fly-by-wire system, flight at night over the ocean and over a storm, stall under the specifications for the stall warning system). It's respectful for the crew.
This is actually fairly untrue, as the AF is one of the only curriculum that enforces glider training. An ATP (air transport pilot) needs 1500h at least, but none of them in a glider :)
I heard however about the story of the experiment that blew up both on Antares and CRS-7. Glad to see an article about it. Space is hard.