I stand by what I said.

A little brusque, maybe. Could he have been more tactful, sure. Were there extenuating circumstances that we don't know about, yes. But may I remind you all that we are not popularity contestants in this industry. If you run off the runway with winds that are encroaching on the max demonstrated value (DELTA and all the others that gladly accepted), have fun with the hearing.

I've flown out of NY for the past 10 years and overall they do an excellent job. But there are a few instances here and there where they will put you in an unsafe condition in order to maximize the dep/arr flow and if you are anything less than stern in your request for otherwise, many times you get ignored or ridiculed.

I don't think ANYONE would divert before reaching JFK, based on the winds alone. They do have runways more aligned into the wind (unless the wind itself was out of limits for any runway, i.e. 40kt steady state.) And the wind reports before the incident weren't always out of limits. So most pilots I know would either attempt an approach or request another runway.

If he did have a fuel problem, however, he should have declared a fuel emergency, which would explain the left hand turn. But it appears fuel wasn't an issue, so no clue as to why he didn't just follow the controller's vector. That part I don't quite get. But declaring an emergency if ATC won't give you a runway that you need for wind limits? Absolutely.