My wife and I were sitting in Malaysian Airlines A340 jump seats. Jump seats are located behind the pilot and co-pilot. We were flying from "KL" (Kuala Lumpur) to New Delhi. The pilot's and co-pilot's backgrounds were quite interesting. The pilot was originally a flight attendant and the co-pilot was an airline mechanic. Both pilots realized that they needed to be pilots in order to make more money, have a better life style, etc.
We were about 20 minutes from "Delhi," chatting about what everyone was going to do after the landing when all hell broke out. Red lights started lighting up on the console. An electronic voice began to shout out warning messages. One of the engines shut down. A computer stopped operating. More red lights - another engine failed!
It was fascinating to see the pilots in action. They went from happy, joking individuals to (very) serious, almost robotic technicians as they went through their 3-ring binders, reading out loud what needed to be done - each one checking each other to be assured that there were no mistakes in trying to keep the plane from crashing.
The pilots called into the control tower asking for an emergency clearance to land. We had earphones on so it was easy to hear the communication going back and forth between the plane and tower. The control tower indicated that there were two runways available - one long and wide for our type of wide-body plane and a short, narrow runway for the smaller planes. The runway best suited for our type of aircraft was being repaired for another 30 minutes. We were told to fly around the airport until the runway was fixed. The pilots indicated the serious problem and chose to use the shorter runway to land the aircraft.
Rather than take the usual approach which is somewhat of a moderate angle, the pilot chose to bring the plane down as quickly as possible using a steep angle so that when the plane was at its final approach, it was flying just above the ground. As soon as the wheels were over the runway, the pilot brought the plane down onto the concrete and applied the brakes as much as possible. We skidded down the runway and came to a stop with the nose of the plane hanging over the end of the runway. Somehow, the pilot was able to turn the plane around and headed back up the runway when we saw another plane making its final approach on the same runway.
The pilot shouted out (which had to be Malaysian #&%*&#!) and gunned the two still working engines so that the plane was now moving forward toward the oncoming plane. At the last moment (before the planes crashed into each other), our pilot found a turn-off and we were safe from a sure disaster. The two remaining engines died the next moment.
We were towed safely to the gate. The passengers had no idea how close they were to dying.
