sometimes we lose by making things too complex
I just read the very nicely written observations of the A340 captain.
But I am reminded of a similiar class of jetliner and how it would behave in such a situation.
Assuming for a moment that both of its engines were damaged, the plane would still have manual reversion for yaw, pitch and roll. Getting the APU started would power the entire electrical load and hydraulic power *(Ok, the galley should be turned off).
There would be no real need to reconfigure anything. The flight instruments would all be working. The ignition is always ON for takeoff and landing and there would be no real reason to attempt a relight, as it either would or wouldn't work and little if anything would need doing.
The pilot would trim for best glide *min safe speed approximates this, and head for the preselected landing spot. The copilot would manually close the outflow valve by moving a large handle and then flip off two switches to discontinue bleed air.
There would be no RAT, no triple redundent hydraulic system, but the plane would be controllable and NEVER have to ask a computer to maintain a G load or rate of turn.
And the builder of this type of plane had an unplanned ditching in salt water in which tis earlier type of plane was pulled out and easily repaired and flew another 20 years.
The make of course was Douglas and the types are the DC9 and DC8.
We have gone so far towards the use of computers and composites that we have taken a giant leap backwards in simplicity and reliability. KISS...the answer to so many things.
I would even say the tail mounted engines might just have been protected by the leading edge of the wing from the birds, especially at climb attitude. While the underwing engines of the airbus would seem to present their inlet prior to the wing.
Of course it would take some pretty fancy computer modeling to prove the above, and it is only hypothesis.
I also have to wonder if the 727 or L1011 would have had some protection for the center engine due to the S shaped ducting providing air.
Again, the crew did fine. But please KISS *keep it simple stupid.