I'll start off by saying good job for not killing a lot of people and will also actively state that I for one think that "monday morning quarterbacking" can be a good thing as it will get a good discussion going and may prevent a similar situation in the future. The following are thoughts that I have and I am throwing them out for discussion not bashing.

1. Where they really in a situation that a go around was not an option fuel wise? If so how did they get into that situation?? If it was that bad then then why not declare min fuel with app...then if ignored declare emergency and tell them you are proceeding direct to the runway. Then if you get down there and winds dictate a different runway you still have enough fuel to do a go around and let ATC get traffic out of the way.

2. If they had enough fuel to do a go around then why not let ATC have a few mins to sequence you. If you let them know you have to be on the ground within say 4 mins..that way they have time to throw out a few vectors and make sure you dont hit anyone. You're not gonna run outta gas in 4 mins, but you may get in a midair in 47 secs...

3. I fly a plane with tail mounted engines. 30 kts is our max crosswind, but I know (well can guess due to the fact that nothing is close to the ground at 30 kts) that the plane would be able to land in 35 kts and not scrape anything. The question here is can a 757/767 take on 35 kts crosswind and be ok or will you guys scrape an engine?

4. Going rouge in a busy terminal environment seems dangerous to me. I have never touched foot on JFK so I don't know exactly how JFK works, but I have spent thousands of hours dealing with ORD and I know that at ORD planes come in every few seconds from every direction. If someone did that at ORD there would be a pretty good chance of hitting someone.

5. If the 757 can land in 35 kts (not break the plane) then wouldn't it have been overall safer to still declare the emergency so you're now "legal" and land with the extra crosswind compared to going rouge and possibly turning into a another plane/helicopter. I know a lot of guys are gonna say "well what if you blew a tire, ran off the end/side..etc" well what if they would have hit a low level helicopter in the turn, or turned into another guy on approach? Chances are more survivors would be found at the side of the runway compared to after a mid-air.

Also it seems like the crew caused a lot of confusion by doing this. What if tower had someone in position and hold (and forgot about them) or crossing 31 L/R whatever it was or had issued taxi instructions and timing would have worked out so that they would have met on the runway with the landing aircraft (once again no idea how JFK is laid out). Anyways after some thinking it seems like although these guys got the plane on the ground without killing people it seems like they definately opened up some "fatal windows" that luckily didn't get them.