If your plane is out-of-control, why does military training instruct releasing the joystick to neutralize controls?
Many abnormal situations can be at least partly pilot-induced.

Most civil airplanes (modern military ones are another topic - but computers add to that... ) are aerodynamically stable. Releasing the controls gets rid of probable faulty input and gives the plane a chance to stabilize. This might work (did in this case), but if there is a situation where the normal stability is no longer present - it might increase the problem.