Yep. Conditions which the NYC flight could probably claim to have had ( it's a little unclear whether the on board video let them fly it outside LoS, and if it did whether they ever did fly it outside LoS.)
I guess my point is that it's no more "definitely illegal" than driving a car. There are rules and regulations, but there are many people working within those rules, and legally flying autonomous drones. Nobody says driving a car is "definitely illegal" because you need to have a license, a registered roadworthy car, stop at red lights and drive on the correct side of the road. The regulations do allow for autonomous rc aircraft. They don't allow for them to do 60 mile round trips to collect cookies from your Mom, but saying "thats definitely illegal" needs at least qualifying with something like "except under certain constraints and conditions" or it's at least misleading, if not outright wrong.
"Recreational use of the NAS is covered by FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 91-57 which generally limits operations to below 400 feet above ground level and away from airports and air traffic."
This is recreational use, and I consistently see people deferring to this "Advisory" circular which specifically states it merely "encourages voluntary compliance"
You can only do it so long as you could take control of the aircraft any time. This means you need LoS, and you need a radio.