Under normal flight conditions, the aircraft's engine supplies hydraulic power to the flight controls (flaps, ailerons, elevator), like power steering in your c

Under normal flight conditions, the aircraft's engine supplies hydraulic power to the flight controls (flaps, ailerons, elevator), like power steering in your car. Very necessary for big/fast aircraft, as the plane is heavy and the force of the air resisting the movement of those control surfaces is very high. If the engines fail, you still need to be able to control the plane, so there is something called a ram air turbine[1] which can be deployed out of the side of the aircraft. It is basically just a little propeller which spins in the breeze, which powers a pump, which supplies the hydraulic pressure to control the plane. So if the power goes out, you can still deploy that thing and have "power" assistance in controlling the plane. The article says the ram air turbine did not deploy, possibly because the g-forces were holding it in, or perhaps because the g-forces or aerodynamic stresses were flexing the body of the plane so much that the turbine was held in place by the bending. So the pilots did not have "power steering" on the plane, and had to pull on the controls with "raw muscle force". There is probably some mechanical advantage, probably both from the leverage afforded by the mechanics of actuation, and from the aerodynamics of the wing, that allow a single human to move the whole plane around. But it would still be very, very hard to control the plane without power assist, especially under such extreme conditions. (Any pilots/aerospace engineers feel free to chime in/correct mistakes here). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine