At Least 40 Killed as Jet Crashes on Long Island : Aviation: 158 are aboard. Boeing 707 from Bogota, Colombia, goes down on approach to Kennedy Airport.

A Colombian jetliner, feeling its way through fog and rain, missed its first approach to Kennedy International Airport Thursday night, then tried again and crashed about 50 yards from a house in a wealthy, secluded area of Long Island. Authorities said at least 40 people were killed, but that as many as 74 survived.

Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707 bound from Bogota with a stopover in the cocaine capital of Medellin, fell on a wooded hillside in Cove Neck, not far from the estate of tennis champion John McEnroe. There was no immediate indication that the cartel, which claimed responsibility for an Avianca bombing last November, was involved in this crash.

The plane lost power in first one and then a second of its four engines, officials said. Some accounts said the pilot reported running out of fuel. Survivors told paramedics that the electricity went out as the aircraft dropped. They said the cabin lights darkened, all its engines stopped--and it fell in an eerie silence.

The aircraft broke apart when it hit. The first witnesses at the scene spoke of rending screams from inside and desperate efforts to reach people waving from the mangled wreckage. A number of rescuers pulled children to safety. Some observers attributed the large number of survivors to the fact that the wreckage did not burn.

The pilot and co-pilot were among those killed, but the exact number of dead and injured remained uncertain as the rescuers worked into the early morning.

A nurse at the scene, Lisa Laurie, said that 74 people were taken to local hospitals and that 158 people were on board. She said at least 24 people were confirmed dead. However, early this morning Dr. George Dunn of Glen Cove Community Hospital said rescuers had counted 40 to 50 dead.

The FAA reported that the plane carried 142 passengers and a crew of 7, but Avianca in Colombia initially said the plane had 142 adults, 7 children and 9 crew members.

New York City Emergency Medical Service personnel said there were 25 to 30 people killed, according to EMS spokeswoman Lynn Schulman. But she said Nassau County officials were reporting a much lower total.

“There’s a lot of confusion going on,” Schulman said. “Our medical director is at the scene. . . . It’s very dark. It’s a wooded area. These are the figures we have. Our people feel they are correct.”

The first indication that Flight 52 was in trouble came at 9:22 p.m. when the Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot missed his first approach. “For reasons unknown at this time, (the plane) was unable to land,” said Diane Spitaliere, an FAA spokeswoman.

The FAA said the visibility at Kennedy airport at the time was three-fourths of a mile.

The pilot pulled up and circled. “While heading north from JFK, he lost an engine,” said Andrew Anderson, a New York Port Authority police officer. “Almost immediately afterward, (the airport tower) lost radar and radio contact with the aircraft when he was approximately 15 miles northeast of JFK.”

One survivor told New York TV station WABC: “He (the pilot) didn’t say anything to us.”

The plane crashed at 9:45 p.m., about 17 miles from the airport.

“There was a sudden delay,” said Ken Johnson, who works for a company that leases jet engines. Johnson was listening to his radio that scans conversation between aircraft and the Kennedy tower. “I heard it (the crash) was in Oyster Bay.”

Johnson headed straight to the scene.

“The cockpit was ripped,” he said. “I saw the horror. It’s not a pleasant sight. I saw people hurt and being pulled out of the wreckage. It was knee-weakening.

“I said to myself: ‘The pilot tried to ditch.’ I did not see any evidence of fire. There was a jet-fuel smell.” He said he saw dead passengers. The plane hit about 50 yards from one of the homes in the area, Johnson said. He reported that nobody in the house--and nobody else on the ground--was hurt.

Roger Schilling, a Syosett Hospital paramedic, said he helped rescue children ranging in age from 18 months to three years. Schilling told WINS radio that he found the 18-month-old trapped under a passenger seat. The child had a broken femur, Schilling said, but seemed to be in fairly good condition otherwise.

Al Zolezzi, a fireman, said his rescue team was assigned to the cockpit of the plane. He said the team found the pilot and co-pilot dead inside. Eight persons were pulled out of the first class section, Zolezzi said. Only one was alive.

Zolezzi’s team and other groups of rescuers formed an assembly line to pull people out of the plane.

“The majority of the time,” he said, “the people I pulled out were deceased.”

As Zolezzi walked away from the aircraft, he looked back--and began to cry.

“You could see the people’s faces,” he said.

“It’s like a madhouse,” said William Jennings, 21, a college student from Hicksville, N.Y., on Long Island.

Part of the aircraft was on top of a hill and part was at the bottom.

“There were tons of people,” Jennings said. Helicopters landed and picked up the injured. “About 10 people were on one lawn,” he said. “It didn’t look so good. It was exciting at first; but as you got closer and saw all the injured people, it didn’t look so good. It was a mess.”

Most of the dead and injured were Latino.

“I made a very simple prayer of the three words I know in Spanish--Jesus, Maria y Jose (Jesus, Mary and Joseph),” said Father Daniel Ahern, a Catholic priest from nearby Oyster Bay, who was called to the crash site to administer last rites.

He handed out rosary beads to the living.

Another priest, Father James Balman, chaplain of the Cove Neck fire department, told a reporter from WINS radio: “It’s just a miracle that so many people survived. The plane didn’t burn up.

“A lot of people must have said their prayers this morning.”

The plane crash was the first for Chris Siciliano, assistant fire chief of the East Williamson Fire Department. He said the rescue effort “worked out real well.” Fire units on Long Island had rehearsed for a disaster. Siciliano said it paid off.

“This was my first real, live plane crash, and I hope my last,” he said.

Paul Wolf, a resident of Cove Neck, said he arrived at the scene within six minutes of the crash. “I saw children who didn’t speak much English being pulled from the plane and crying for their parents,” he said.

Other witnesses said they could hear screaming. Stunned survivors wandered around in shock near the wreckage, witnesses said.

Brian Johnson, who lives near the crash site, said he was listening to a radio scanner when he heard the jetliner’s pilot saying: “This is Avianca Flight 52. We have an emergency. We have lost two engines.”

The traffic controller approved an emergency landing and gave the pilot the coordinates, Johnson said.

There was one report that the plane dumped fuel.

“The plane was coming in real, real low,” Johnson said. “It hit the trees and there was a big fireball. There was an explosion, like a bright light and it dimmed out.”

Johnson said he ran over to the site. The first people he met were just walking away, some of them apparently in shock. Others were badly hurt, he said.

The chaos at the site created by the narrow roads and congestion meant that victims did not arrive at hospitals for an hour following the crash at the earliest. Some rescuers were forced to abandon their vehicles, which could not make it through the traffic, and raced to the scene on foot carrying stretchers and supplies.

Rescuers clamored into the passenger cabin that looked like it had been stripped down to the bare metal. Televised pictures showed them reemerging with several children and one infant.

One man buried in the wreckage waved his hand slowly as rescuers crawled over the debris toward him. A young girl screamed for help from a mountain of debris on top of the fuselage near where the wings had broken up. She clung to the foot of a woman still strapped in a seat that had been thrust on top of the fuselage.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

John J. Nance, an aviation expert, said early reports indicated that the plane may well have run out of gas. He said the crash seemed similar to one that occurred in Portland, Ore., when a United Air Lines plane ran out of gas.

Boeing officials in Seattle said the Avianca plane was 23 years old.

Also contributing to this story were staff writers Robert E. Dallos, William C. Rempel and Karen Tumulty in New York, and Edward J. Boyer and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles.