Video: 'Air Crash Investigations Mayday 02x06 Missing Over New York Avianca Flight 52'

(Thursday, January 25, 1990, 9:33:24 p.m. EST) — Avianca Flight 52, a regularly scheduled flight from Bogotá to New York, via Medellín, ran out of fuel and crash tonight onto a hillside in the small village of Cove Neck, New York, on the north shore of Long Island, after a failed attempt to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).

Eight of the nine crew members, including all three flight crew members, and 65 of the 149 passengers on board the Boeing 707 were killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crash occurred due to the flight crew failing to properly declare a fuel emergency, failure to use an airline operational control dispatch system, inadequate traffic flow management by the Federal Aviation Administration, and the lack of standardized understandable terminology for pilots and controllers for minimum and emergency fuel states.