Engines Out, Fuel Low Prior to Avianca Crash : Aviation: Officials tell of the crew’s radio calls. The death toll is put at 72. The 89 survivors are in hospitals.

Investigators said Friday that the crew of a Colombian Boeing 707 jetliner radioed twice that the plane was running out of fuel, and as many as three engines apparently were not operating when the craft plunged in rain and fog into an isolated wooded hillside here Thursday night.

The National Transportation Safety Board said 72 people were killed in the crash while 89 survivors were taken to 14 hospitals. Some of the injured were in critical condition, and the death toll could increase. Among the dead were the plane’s two pilots and the flight engineer.

The fourth engine of the plane, buried in mud at the crash site, has not yet been inspected.

After a day-long investigation, Lee Dickinson, an NTSB official, said a member of the cabin crew who survived told police there was no alarm of a pending accident before the crash. Dickinson said that early in the flight, the cockpit voice recorder showed the crew had “concern about the amount of fuel in the aircraft.”

That concern intensified after the pilots aborted a first try at landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport because the plane was sinking too fast and a warning system repeatedly announced: “Pull Up! Pull Up!”

After the missed approach, the Avianca Airlines flight, which originated in Bogota with 161 people on board, was directed by air traffic control toward a second approach.

“The crew repeated they were running out of fuel or they were low on fuel,” Dickinson told a press conference at a hotel on Long Island. “Air traffic control gave them vectors and asked them if this was OK and the crew responded: ‘OK.’ ”

The plane was then given a new heading to the airport by approach controllers. “The crew reported the loss of two engines, and following that the cockpit voice recorder quit,” the NTSB investigator said.

The plane had been in a holding pattern for over an hour before it received permission to land.

Another passenger said that minutes before the plane hit, all lights, including the landing lights, went out.

Inside the cabin, survivors said they were getting restless after the plane had circled the airport in low visibility. During the flight, passengers said the pilot had announced the plane would be 20 minutes late because of congestion and airport conditions.

“We tried to land. We came in low and I recognized the highways (around the airport),” said Jorge Lozano, 59, a Colombian businessman who suffered cuts, spinal injuries and internal bleeding. “We flew by. Apparently the runway was not visible. He went up and was circling very high.”

Lozano said the pilot made no further announcements before the plane hit the hill. “He didn’t say anything after telling us the flight would be delayed.”

In the final minutes before the crash, Lozano said the plane went dark.

“In the last five minutes, at the very end, I think the guy ran out of gas because the landing lights went out and the inside lights went out too,” the businessman said. “I think that’s why we survived, because there wasn’t any gas to burn.”

As the plane started to descend quickly, Lozano, who sat in seat 4-F in the first class cabin, crouched over his brown leather attache case, imitating the proper crash position drawings that are routinely shown to passengers.

“It was bumpy. The ladies and kids were screaming. I had time to say a prayer. I put my attache case over my knees because I didn’t have a pillow . . . In about five seconds we were crashing into the trees.”

Lozano spoke with difficulty from a stretcher at North Shore University Hospital where he was taken by ambulance. The entire rescue effort was complicated by hundreds of curious local residents who clogged roads leading to the crash scene.

A team of 18 investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board converged on the site 15 miles northeast of the airport. Officials early in the day said key cockpit instruments had been recovered and sent to Washington for analysis.

The theory that the plane might have run out of fuel also was supported by the fact there was no explosion and fire when it crashed.

Nearby residents said no engine noise was heard just before the plane hit.

“I didn’t hear the engine. The engine probably wasn’t running,” said Dr. Carlos Montero, who lives close by and who helped treat the injured.

“There wasn’t a sound before it. Only the boom,” said Tom McCarthy, whose home also is close to the scene.

“It didn’t sound like the engines were running. It sounded more like a whoosh,” added a visitor to a home on Tennis Court Road, the crash site. He said that at first, family members thought a raccoon was at the front door.

Neighbors said there wasn’t a strong fuel smell even though the plane’s wings were split from the fuselage.

But at a news conference, Dickinson said a “cursory” look at the cockpit’s instruments showed “there was some fuel in the tanks, on the order of 10,000 pounds.”

The government official said he did not know if the plane could have landed on that amount of fuel. Dickinson said it depended on various factors, including the altitude of the plane and the functioning of valves. These will be the subject of intense scrutiny today.

On its way to New York, the plane had stopped at Medellin, where Colombian cocaine druglords have been very active. But NTSB investigators said there was no evidence of sabotage.

The government investigators studied the aircraft both from the ground and from helicopters. They said that the interior of the cockpit and the fuselage were badly damaged. Some of the damage may have come from rescue workers struggling to remove the injured, they said.

Many relatives of those on board waited throughout the night at Kennedy Airport. Some spent Friday anxiously going from hospital to hospital, seeking word of their loved ones. Nine of the 72 fatalities were positively identified by day’s end, Dickinson said.

He said that investigators had found “no evidence of rotation” on three of the Boeing 707’s engines. Investigators will try to determine today if fuel was flowing to the non-rotating engines.

At no time did the crew request an emergency landing, he said.

Dickinson said preliminary analysis showed those who survived were on the right-hand side of the aircraft.

The plane’s wheels were up, but inspectors said from the position of the wing flaps, the aircraft was beginning to maneuver for a landing.

The flight data recorder that was taken to Washington was a very old model and not in good shape, government officials said. But they said the cockpit’s voice recorder was in excellent shape and the tape had very good quality.

“All we know is this plane did shoot a mis-approach,” said Dickinson. “Everything seemed to be OK. They (control tower personnel) vectored them in for a second approach. They were coming in, and they didn’t make it.”

Hospital officials said at least 25 of the injured were in serious or critical condition, and more than two dozen children were among the injured.

Some of the children had been adopted by American parents and were making their first trips to their new homes.

Times staff writers Karen Tumulty, Hector Tobar, David Savage and Lisa Romaine contributed to this story.

Boeing 707 Passengers: Up to 219 Wing span: 145ft. 9 in. Length overall: 152 ft. 11 in. Max cruising speed: 605 mph Stalling speed: 121 mph Source: Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft