The AI just has to fly in a nice easy curve around the map. Nothing fancy.
That's the problem. If it is nothing fancy, you get things like them flying straight into mines because they are "just following their path"..
As soon as you add extra behaviour to deal with each situation, you get strange interactions between the "AI goals" which leads to the AI doing completely bizarre things like not moving at all, flying into terrain, flying off the map and then map-killed against the terrain by the YSNP (You Shall Not Pass) winds, spinning around on the spot etc.
EDIT: You see this in the existing AI. Sometime, the AI will sit at an engines waiting for cooldown to repair the tiniest damage.. while the hull is down.
There is a good reason Muse hasn't implemented pilot AI