The fail image statement is of limited practical use for the programmer as it can only fail the executing image. But it is still very useful for trying out failure recovery methods already. (I did only try out some basics yet and have some ideas already).
The fail image statement would be more useful if it would allow to fail remote images as well, as the programmer can develop techniques to get hints as if a remote image is a candidate for an image failure. (I can’t tell if such a remote fail image would be technically possible, though). Without such a feature the raising and detection of failed images is solely left to the run-time. (The compilers are still at an early stage and won’t do the job yet). Thus, raising (remote) image failure is one aspect where the Fortran programmer has no low-level access to yet. (As opposed to data transfer/synchronization, and recovery methods at the coarray team level -as far as I can tell from some basic testing yet-).
Moreover, failed images in Fortran, specifically with OpenCoarrays/gfortran, are still cutting-edge and ongoing research: Refining Fortran Failed Images .