an interesting day
I just watched the track (ground track) of the plane on tv. It seemed to turn back near Santa Barbara.
If the situation were dire, there is a 6050' runway (tight but doable) at Santa barbara airport, Point Magu NAS and Vandenberg AFB were also close by with runways of 11,000' and 15000' .
The pilot elected to land downwind at KLAX to expedite the arrival...if things were that bad the above airports might have been a better option
It sounds to me like there was an air conditioning problem.
It seems to me that the slides/chutes might have been over doing it, but we simply don't know the details.
Nice to see the winglets on the 757.