Putting it all to manual???? For a non-pilot? I think you'll find that everyone will agree that under the situation suggested, the passengers' best hope is to keep as much of the automatics as humanly possible, if not, then more!
Putting it all in manual and having him hand-fly it his brain is going to be so full that he's either going to be working so hard to fly it he won't be able to talk back to you, or he'll ba talking nineteen to the dozen whilst the machine goes into a spiral dive.