I think they have been considering it.... the challenge is in the "recoverable" aspect. Landing on a bouncing, moving, gusty, carrier deck is supposedly one of the toughest skills to learn for a pilot. And that's when you are actually 'present'. I don't think they are anywhere near being able to reliably land a drone on a carrier deck either by auto pilot or remote controlled. The alternative is to launch from a carrier deck and land the drone at a land-based strip. But then - why not launch from the land based strip in the first place? Space is valuable on a carrier - to tie up space for a drone that could be launched from the shore may not make sense.
What I could see, however, is a drone setup that packs into a shipping container (already exists, according to Wikipedia) that is stored with a battle group. When appropriate - a helicopter ferries it to a nearby airstrip and the drone is flown from there.
In the case of this missing plane, though... it is so far from any where of course that drones are no help at all... assuming that it in fact in the southern Indian ocean.