I suspect some of the facts around where they were at the point of the engine failure are not quite correct. While glide distance varies a bit with weight, it is impossible to be so gash as to loose 9000 ft in 4 miles in anything like 'normal' flight.
Re - 2 pilots (or pilot and instructor) There is a piece on Avweb about Instructor Induced Stupidity (IIS). It is fairly common for PPLs (particularly with different experience levels) to defer authority to 'the other one' resulting in no one taking the command decisions. This is why it is so important to breif the roles people are playing (i.e. is the guy in the right seat PIC because of his experience, PNF and helping, or interested passenger)