I'll bet he didn't have to circle around about 10 times like the rest of the flights into LAX.
When I first came out to LA you wouldn't have been able to see those buildings for the smog. You wouldn't even have known there were mountains in the background. It was 85*-90* today & in the "old days" there would have been a smog warning issued.
My first plane trip was from San Jose to LA. Flying back out of LA to San Jose, the plane had reached altitude the stewardess was serving coffee the seat belt sign was off when all of a sudden we DROPPED 1000’s of feet in a second. I was sitting next to the window and saw a (what I call needle nose military jet) coming right at us. Our pilot had to drop or we would have been hit. Needles to say I don’t fly.