Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 23:34:45 -0500, Aardvark
wrote in Message-Id:
:

http://www.naats.org/docs/flightassist.mp3

While this FSS controller promotional audio clip seems to provide a
glimpse at a very frightened pilot's fear of death, I failed to find
any meaningful assistance provided by FAA personnel other than some
dubious control input suggestions. It seems the pilot was able to
regain control of his aircraft and composure merely as a result of
having the (false?) reassurance of contact with another human.
Interesting stuff.

If the pilot had been unable to regain control, the rest would have been
moot. Once control was regained, the guy was still lost, with no idea of
which way to turn to get into VFR conditions. To me, that was the
meaningful assistance provided by the FAA personnel, and I'm hard pressed
to think of a reasonable substitute.

Regards & happy holidays,

Neil