Buggalugs,
Where does your height and distance come from? Sounds specific enough that you know where the failure occured?
Ive been looking at the maps trying to think how things went. Even if he faced a total loss of one... considering he would not have been much higher than 1000' outbound from Bankstown? Height loss in the initial clean up and 180 degree turn. The site is within 3 miles of Bankstown. I imagine he was only losing 100 feet a minute, at most.
With my modest Mojave experience, I would think he did a damn fine job even if he had partial power on one. He was just so agonizingly close.
How many losses have Airtex had, now? Was the YSSY Metro the last?