barit1 describes a horrifying, but completely avoidable situation. As tha accident report indicates, the flight crew had received no training in recovery from the fully developed stall. Not their fault, and not the fault of probably most airline pilots who have never seen the stall characteristics of their aircraft.
The standard training syllabi indicate training for recovery from the stall warning only. In one sense that's a good thing, the aircraft is still fully controllable, and the onset of the stall warning is the appropriate time to IMMEDIATELY initiate stall recovery actions, there's no question about that. On the other hand, with high fidelity simulators available, I have always campaigned for additional simulator training demonstrating the fully developed (full back stick) stall, and have always given that exercise to my trainees as a bit of 'bonus' training. Control and recovery procedures differ considerably from their earlier full stall training on prop aircraft, and the application of the intuitive responses learned at this phase could be disastrous. Sadly, this seems to have been the case for the ill-fated DC8 crew, who might have benefited from such training.
I have done a lot of fully developed stalls during flight testing, but, with trainees in the aircraft whilst awaiting simulator certification, also did a lot of recoveries from the stall warning, NEVER to the fully developed stall. On one occasion, the student got such a fright as the overly assertive stall warning triggered, that he applied full BACK stick, precipitating the full stall. On that day, my own full stall exposure paid big dividends. It can, and does, happen.
Hopefully, one day, pilots will receive simulator training in recognition of and recovery from the full stall. Until that day, the title of this forum should perhaps have been amended from "Can airliners recover from a stall?" to "Can airline pilots recover from a stall?"
Regards,
Old Smokey