Jetliner Apparently Ran Out of Fuel Before Crash; Death Toll Rises to 69

A Colombian jetliner carrying 158 people apparently ran out of fuel before it crashed near New York’s Kennedy Airport, killing 69 people and critically injuring more than 50 others, officials said today.

The injured, who were pulled from the wreckage of the Boeing 707 Thursday night by an army of rescue workers, battled for life as worried relatives awaited word on the fate of their loved ones.

Of the 158 people on Avianca Flight 52, officials said at least 69 were dead. Another 57 were in critical condition in 10 hospitals with broken bones, deep cuts, crushed limbs and other injuries. The other 32 of those aboard were hospitalized in fair or stable condition.

None of the injured were burned, and no fire was seen by rescue workers after the plane crashed into the wooded hills of this exclusive Long Island suburb.

Investigators were examining what caused the flight from Bogota--via Colombia’s drug capital of Medellin--to crash, but it appeared certain that the plane crashed without much fuel.

Officials and passengers said the plane had been scheduled to land at 8 p.m. but circled for more than an hour before it made its final approach at 9:24 p.m.

Two so-called “black box” flight recorders were recovered and sent to Washington to be studied.

Foul play was not suspected, but federal officials said three of the passengers, two of whom died, were carrying cocaine secreted in rubber packets in their stomachs. Drug agents said it is not unusual to find cocaine on passengers from Colombia.

An Avianca jet with 107 aboard exploded in midair two months ago near Bogota and drug lords claimed they had put a bomb on the plane, but there were no indications that the Long Island crash had anything to do with the drug barons.

Investigators from the National Safety Transportation Board arrived early today but had no immediate comment on the cause of the crash, which occurred about 15 miles from New York’s Kennedy Airport in fog and rain at 9:34 p.m. Thursday.

Amateur radio operator Anthony Rosati said he heard the pilot’s last message as he listened to an aircraft scanner. It was a stark: “We have just lost two engines. Dumping fuel. Requesting emergency assistance.”

Inside the plane, passengers were apparently given no warning.

“The plane went up and up and then it lost control and the plane started shaking. The lights went off, and people started to scream,” said survivor Carlos Gomez.

Minutes after the plane slammed into the wooded area, an alert went out across Long Island and nearly 1,000 rescue workers jammed highways to get to the scene.

One of the first to reach the crash was Dr. Stephen Coyne, the chief of radiology at the Community Hospital of Glen Cove.

“ ‘What am I going into?’ I asked myself. I assumed there would be few survivors, but I was overwhelmed at how many there were and how many had severe fractures, the bones protruding through legs, pretzel-like.

“I’m 41, but I just became 61.”

The pilot and co-pilot died in the crash, and only one of the nine-member crew is thought to have survived.

The nearby front lawn of tennis champion John McEnroe’s parents became a makeshift morgue as bodies were brought there to be covered in white plastic body blankets.