high adventure plane crash

If there's another qualified pilot on board, the best the MC can do is pull the pilot back to the cabin and strap him in. There's no guarantee of any other crew member, pilot or not, on board, unless you write them in. Jets fly through, and over, blizzards all the time, you're going to need something to fail. Wing deicer for example. Out of fuel.

For me, the hypnotism part doesn't work, but you know your audience better than I do.

Jeff

Not a pilot, but I spent my childhood in the back seat of a Cessna 182.

Agree with WeaselFire on the blizzard. Planes handle weather all the time, and often smaller planes are better equipped to handle heavy turbulence than larger ones. You might be able to play with disorientation; unless you've got really heavy winds, losing track of where you are will be a much bigger threat than weather (but you'll want to look into VFR (visual flight rules) vs IFR (instrument flight rules) to understand what would need to go wrong for this to be an issue).

I do think mechanical problems are a better bet, and WeaselFire gave you a couple that could work. IIRC a smaller plane would be better at gliding in a low/no fuel situation than an airliner, which might give you a more controlled crash and a more plausible case for survivors.

No argument with the hypnotism. I used to love the X-Files.

Pilots avoid cumulonimbus clouds/thunder heads - not because of the lightning (planes are built to withstand lightning strikes) but because you get hail and unpredictable wind shear and potentially dangerous air currents. Though it's not the case that any bad things would happen just because you go into a cloud like this, it's just that the risk is too high for commercial aviation. Sometimes you get a dark spot on the radar (I forgot the technical term for it - radar shadow maybe?) which is where the cloud cover/storm is so dense that the radar can't get through at all and it looks like there's a clearing in the middle of the storm but it's actually the worst part of the storm. There have been planes put in danger from this (I can't remember if it crashed or if they managed to land it safely but in one incident it resulted in engine failure from the sheer volume of hail... plane engines can take a lot of water but they're not so good with hail in large quantities - maybe they're better now this incident happened some time ago). Anyway, truly epic storms are best avoided, however just because a plane flies into one it doesn't mean it will automatically crash. But it's not worth the risk to fly commercial airliners into thunderstorms.

When I was doing GCSE geography (UK high school exam) we were shown a video of a plane flying through a hurricane and filming from inside the eye. It was one of the top military planes, although this was the early 90s so not that high tech by modern standards. A commercial airliner won't withstand a hurricane if you want to go down the route of pilot doing something crazy however bear in mind that planes who go into the wrong airspace without permission or deviate significantly from their flight plan will be intercepted by military jets as this could be a hijacking.

Regarding your questions and other questions, this you tuber's got a whole channel about being a commercial airline pilot https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpHKudUkP5tNgmMdexB3ow he has a group on this app (I think it's one you pay for but it's not expensive) where people can go and ask questions about aviation, it's mostly aimed at people who want to be or are training as pilots however he also welcomes people who are just interested in aviation and people who want to know more about flying. So he might be able to help, or if not him AFAIK there are other pilots on the app that might be able to help. I'm not part of the app I just watch the you tube videos (because I'm a nerd lol) and have learned a lot from them and some of the content in the videos might help with your research.

Most smaller private jets can be flown single pilot, as long they are not flown under commercial ops at least under US regs. Larger jets with two required crew members will always have a fully qualified co-pilot capable of flying and landing the plane.

Jets are complex however, and are very picky on airspeeds and flap/slat configurations on landing. Even a pilot, not rated for the jet in question will have a tough time pulling off a landing without bending some metal. The chances of a non pilot pulling off a survivable landing are fairly slim, without some serious side by side coaching.