KJFK Runway 22L is 2560m long. That’s a pretty short runway for a 747-400.
The crew will be planning flap 30, and autobrake 4, with partial/full reverse.
Flap 30 has a placard speed of 180 knots, and likely to offer a final approach speed at typical landing weight of less than 140kts? Shall we say 5 miles is approximately 1,500 ft? Maybe less, as the associated DME overreads by more than a mile!
BA has very strict Stablised Approach Criteria. (I accept others are less strict.) So that’s 500’ (or less!) to move comfortably away from flap limiting speed, before selecting flap 30, whilst achieving a 35 knot reduction in 500’ or less, in an aircraft with significant momentum.
IMVHO, that’s a pretty tight corner to ask this crew to accept, and that’s before we consider the meteorology on the day.
Perhaps we might reasonably ask, why that requirement was imposed on that one aircraft on that day. It certainly isn’t normal. Even in New York. If it were, there’d be an awful lot of aircraft going around!
Purely subjectively, it looks to me like a pretty stupid request/instruction.