@georgeob1,
A dead stick landing at Laguardia might have been possible, however the down side to any misjudgement would likely have been a fatal crash into urban structures. The distance in the chart looks deceptively favorable to the Laguardia option. However it still would have required a 60 plus degree turn and possibly more to correctly line up with the runway. The effect of a turn on reducing the gliding distance is very strong -- a fairly standard disaster scenario in such cases is an unwise attempt to turn back to the point of departure. Moreover, the field landing would have required that the flaps and landing gear be lowered - both actions would have very substantially reduced the aircraft gliding distance - in addition to the turn - and it is not at all clear that the aircraft could have made it.
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A slow and very minor banking turn would seem off hand not to reduce the glide range greatly. An almost zero bank rubber sliding turn is possible even if it go strongly against the training of every pilot in the world.
As far as the wheels being down I would assume that the lowing of them would be delay to the last possible moment and once more not greatly reducing the glide range.
As far as flaps needing to be down I am not at all sure how long the runways are at JFK or the stopping distance of that model of airbus with brakes alone and fully loaded.
Coming in hot even with brakes alone and a full fuel load might be possilbke for a narrow body jet of that type.
Kind of hard on the tires however.
