One dark night over Africa en route CPT, a guy broke into the cockpit. The copilot was being strangled by the intruder, the 747 fell 18,000 ft (2 miles) in a minute or so with bank angle in excess of 90 degrees in the dark. Airspeed around 100 its - same as AF 447.
Co pilot eventually struggled free (Captain attacked the attacker) but by now they were falling so fast that impact was less than a minute away.
But, once he broke free from the attacker, he recovered the plane wings level and pulled out of the dive without over stressing the wings.
Landed Nairobi and plane found perfectly airworthy after a day or so.
He never flew for the US Navy. Nor did Eric Moody. This nonsense that we hear occasionally that airline pilots are not the 'real thing' is a nonsense. Airline pilots are trained to do a very different job which military pilots are often unsuited to perform. Many of them fail conversion course on to civil airlines.
Not a great example of a bloke with a non-military background doing a good job, since the pilot in question was ex-RAF. But as you say, a really good example of airmanship.