As a bloke that sits and drinks coffee with John most Tuesdays I'd like to put to bed a couple of the suggestions made in this thread.
Firstly, right from the day after the incident, reporters (some using very dirty tactics to obtain Johns address) have been pestering to get the details of what, let's face it, is a great human interest story. John has freely given his time to give what details he could. Apart from taxi fares he hasn't had any remuneration for giving interviews for Radio or TV news programmes, or for the Channel 4 documentary. The suggestion that the story was cobbled together for Johns monetary gain I find distasteful.
As an avid enthusiast his car is equipped with an airband radio which I've never known to be switched off. I believe this is where his apparent ease on the radio stemmed from.
His time in the RAF was spent as a Desk Clerk but his interest in aviation meant he was always up for a flight wherever possible, in aircraft of whatever Squadron he was serving with at the time. As a retired chap, he regularly haunts his local airfields and has been successful in 'blagging' passenger flights with friendly pilots.
So, not a 'green know nothing passenger', but there's nothing in his history would prepare him for the job thrust upon him that Tuesday evening last October. Nothing can be said that takes away the fact that John did extremely well in the circumstances he found himself.
John is a mild mannered, good humoured gentleman who is now, slightly embarrassed about the whole affair and still wishes he could have done more to give his friend a better chance of survival.