The silliness of the NYT article is that pilots cannot land a plane without a controller's guidance or even find a gate.
I was going to turn on the sarcasim button and comment about that, thank goodness you handled it a little more tastefully.
assuming one had the runway in sight, I would have landed too. cleared for the approach, if you went NORDO, you land VFR at the first airport, right?
Correct FAR 91.185
VFD