The plane appeared to still be nose up as it stalled in like he was trying to power for altitude. One would think if he had no thrust, he’d at least try to bring the nose to level or slightly down to try to establish a glide away from folks on the ground. I don’t think he could have gotten to open ground where there doesn’t appear to be enough room to try to put down the plane with any chance of success, but he could have tried to avoid the buildings, or to the river, but it doesn’t appear that he even tried to turn in that direction (to the right for either).
At 500 feet altitude I don’t believe the pilot had time to do much of anything other than try to keep the plane in the air.
I think he was trying to hold altitude and glide as far as he could. The 787, like a lot of post-WW2 large aircraft, has a significant wing angle of incidence or angle of attack. A 787 that’s flying level will actually be about 5 or so degrees nose up angle.
The B-52 having an opposite angle of attack is why those things look like they’re nose down when they’re flying level.
A level nose doesn’t generate nearly as much lift as higher angle of attack. Pitching up means more lift (to a certain point), but also more drag (slows you down). Max glide range will vary based on several factors, but a higher angle of attack to maximize L/D ratio would give the most time to try to fix a loss of power issue. Couple seconds, but that might be enough if you can restart a failed engine