Just watched the movie "Flight" starring Denzel Washington.
Firstly is it possible to recover a plane like his character did?
The scenario they used is similar, but not identical, to the Alaskan Airlines aircraft that crashed off LA. I had cause to read that accident report a couple of weeks ago, and it was irrecoverable once the screw jack lost it's threads. But, in the movie, they modify things a bit, so that the cause is related to the elevator, not the trimming tail...that might have made it somewhat more recoverable, as the elevator has a lot less authority than the entire tailplane.
Rolling the aircraft makes sense. If it's pitching down and you can't stop it, then it may be the only way of getting the nose back above the horizon. Flaps generally give a pitch up response, so that would be helpful. Gear used as a speed brake makes lots of sense (and can be used that way in normal ops). Pulling the engine fire handles will shut the engines down, so you might be better off living with the fire warning.
I guess the upshot is that if you can get the sink rate to something reasonable, and the wings the right way up, at the same time you run out of altitude, then you might get away with it. I might win lotto next week too. On the other hand, you never give up...it just might be your turn to be lucky.
As an aside, a squadron CO that I once worked for, was shot down in Vietnam. The UH1 lost a pitch link in the rotor, and was basically just falling out of the sky. It was pitching from about -45 to -135 degrees nose down. You'd have to say they were dead...but just before reaching the ground, it reached that 45 degree nose low position, and he pulled in full collective. It reared up, rolled over and hit tail first at relatively low vertical speed. Everyone survived.
Secondly, have pilots been through a simulation of the film's events or something similar?
What would be the point? It's not likely to be something you can recover from, so all you'd be doing is practising how to crash. Jammed controls, unusual attitudes, etc are regularly practiced, but building compound emergencies that end in smoking holes won't teach much.
I tried to watch the movie, and managed the accident scene, but most of the rest left me pretty cold. I'm not too sure about the 'wake up' sniff of coke...perhaps that's an American thing. Having him wander out to the aircraft, when loading is well under way, and meet the FO for the first time is just strange...haven't they heard of briefing rooms? It lost me though when he took off in the storm, manually flew it, and oversped the aircraft...at that point I figured it was a drug induced dream.
