In another life as a checker, after completing the sim check of a super ace to a very high standards we used the remaining time to conduct some extra excercises on really unusual attitudes with combinations of other failures...the plane went belly up, ace or no ace. We repeated it twice, same results. 2 years later, another sim check and super ace asked for another go at that exercise...he managed to save the plane but barely. He admitted he thought long and hard about it coming out with all the possible solutions in his head before the session. He was truly humbled and conceded that there were combinations of failures that are almost impossible to handled when one is caught unaware with not much time on one's side.
- NOW - thats the kind of simulator training all pilots should have before they're alowed to become captains. I'm impressed by that ace that came up in his mind with a theoretical solution - and managed to "do the impossible".
The publix / PAX expects (perhaps naively?) the captains to be able to handle the plane from all kind of situations - even it it takes unusual flight maneuvers - like useing the rudder to drop a wing during stall-recovery. The issue is not only be able to handle the initial failure /situation- so to stabilize flight without further or minimal harm- but also to practice sim-scenarioes where everything is suddenly - totaly critical - catastrohpic - Like the the situation the captain found himself in when returning to the cockpit.
Just for curiosity - how many -sim hours are required to become a captain? How many of them will be spent training actual catastrophic scenarios? (not only avoidance of them).
The issue is not only what to do correctly at a high altitude stall warning - but what to do when the things you have done so far has actually made the situation worse - eg the situation between 30000 and ground in this flight (the fully developed flat-stall variant: 40deg AoA - 15 deg pitch - 10000f/min sinkrate)).
It would also be interesting to know at what altitude it was "to late to recover" this sad situation. Assuming you still had pitch authority - or assuming not sufficient pitch authority) - any guesses - 6000 feet?