What might a pilot mean by "uncontrollable"? The air safety reports from FlyDubai aircrew leaked to the Guardian contain some alarming stories about crew rostering, tiredness and duty times, but another one caught my eye, a description of an encounter with severe clear air turbulence on a flight from Moscow to Dubai (search for 511 VKO-DXB):


  Aircraft was uncontrollable at time for 10-15 seconds every now and then. Total duration probably around one and half minute.


What does the pilot mean by uncontrollable? That the aircraft wasn't responding to commands and the crew were helpless passengers, at the mercy of the weather, and that everyone survived simply because it didn't go on long enough to tumble the plane out of the sky? Or that it was just being a bit difficult?
"Uncontrollable" is a technical term (actually, in literature it's more often called "loss of control"). It means the aircraft is not responding to at least one normal command. Be it elevator or ailerons or rudder etc.

Really, really good AND lucky pilots can sometimes still control aircraft that's uncontrollable. Either by using another control surface to influence the control desired (eg. by using rudder to get out of a bank) or by using non-primary surfaces like trim tabs or flaps.

When no control input will influence what the aircraft is doing then it's called total loss of control (or totally uncontrollable).