Search Is On For Jet-Crash Survivors -- Plane Was Off Course Before Hitting Mountain

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Thirteen miles off course and flying way too low for the Andean range, American Airlines Flight 965 was on a collision course with a 9,000-foot-high mountain crest.

Until then, it had been a routine five-hour flight from Miami on a clear, calm night. Moments earlier, air controllers had cleared the Boeing 757 to begin its approach at Alfonso Bonilla airport.

It never made that landing. Instead, it ended up as debris on both sides of the Andean peak, about 20 miles north of Cali, Colombia.

Investigators were trying to find out how at least four of the 164 people aboard survived. Two others reported alive yesterday could not be accounted for today, the head of the Red Cross in Cali said.

"We don't expect to find more survivors," said Carlos Granados, who is coordinating the army rescue operation.

Rescuers today also found a dog that survived the crash. The small brown dog, which rescuers dubbed "Milagro," or Miracle, was found in an animal carrier believed to have been in the plane's baggage compartment, according to an American Airlines official at the crash site.

Four survivors were at Hospital Universitario in Cali, said Dr. Reme Espinosa. They included Gonzalo Dussan, his 6-year-old daughter Michelle and a woman, Mercedes Ramirez, of Blue Springs, Mo., according to Espinosa and paramedic Francia Victoria. The other survivor was identified as Mauricio Reyes, a Colombian business student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Dussan, who was traveling with his wife and two children, said in a Cali hospital that he was unaware of any problems with the plane before he was knocked unconscious when it hit the mountain.

He realized something terrible had happened when he felt the freezing cold in the darkness and the pain in his shoulder.

He looked around. "When I woke up . . . and saw everything scattered around me, I realized we were in an accident," Dussan said.

Most of the passengers apparently were, like Dussan, Colombians headed home for the holidays in Cali.

His young daughter was in a hospital with multiple fractures but the fate of his wife and son was unknown. Earlier reports had said that all four had survived.

At least 10 U.S. citizens were believed to have been aboard the Boeing 757 jet, including its pilot and co-pilot and Francisco Ferre, a son of former Miami Mayor Mauricio Ferre. Rescue workers said they hoped the number of survivors would increase when grim rescue operations resumed.

The operations were suspended yesterday afternoon in the remote crash site in Valle de Cauca province because of freezing rain and dense fog, but resumed today.

In Forth Worth, Texas, American Airlines chairman Robert Crandall said the crash site was "somewhat to the east of the course line" normally set for approaches to Cali.

The plane went down in an area dominated by leftist rebels who have targeted radio beacons for sabotage attacks in the past. The beacons, usually located on towers or mountaintops, emit radio signals that help pilots map their location.

Boeing officials in Seattle, who dispatched a team of investigators to Colombia, said the crash was the first ever involving the twin-engine 757.

Investigators are looking into several possible causes for the crash, including engine trouble, a navigation error, even terrorism.

An FBI team joined officials from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration in probing the wreckage site, although they said they had found no evidence of sabotage.

Moments before the crash, the plane had been in contact with Colombian air-traffic controllers over Buga, about 40 miles north of Cali. The pilots reported they were beginning their approach and indicated no trouble, Crandall said.

Although the weather was reported to be clear, the pilots were navigating by instruments - as is standard procedure for all airliners - rather than using outside reference points.

"We do know the radar was functional in Cali at the time," said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman in Atlanta.

Crandall said both the plane's pilots were highly experienced and familiar with flying into Cali.

Nicholas Tafuri, 57, of Marco Island, Fla., the plane's captain, started flying for American Airlines in 1969 and had 10,000 flight hours, 2,000 of which were in a 757. First Officer Don Williams, 39, of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., started flying with the airline in 1986.

Crandall said under an American Airlines program, a "care team" was assigned to each victim's family, to answer questions and provide relief.

American also dispatched a nonscheduled flight from Miami to Cali yesterday afternoon to deliver equipment and supplies to the crash scene, and to transport family members who wanted to visit the area. About 15 family members boarded the plane.

Before Wednesday's accident, a Boeing 757 had never been involved in a major air disaster, or even an accident resulting in a fatality.

FAA records show only 23 minor accidents, ranging from a tail striking the runway on landing to aileron control problems. One of the worst accidents was in Fort Lauderdale in February 1993: A Delta Air Lines 757 with 182 people aboard had to shut down an engine after takeoff and then blew four tires while making a hard emergency landing.

The 757-223 that crashed on Wednesday was purchased new by American Airlines in 1991. Since then, it had only seven minor service difficulties, FAA records show.

Among them, a light in the cockpit indicated the nose-wheel landing gear was unsafe during an approach to Los Angeles in 1992. The gear was later checked and found to be safe.

Just last month, the FAA downgraded its assessment of Colombia's civil air authority to a "conditional safety" rating after it found faults in its international safety standards.

"It's one of the little-told stories of aviation that flying in Colombia is incredibly dangerous not just because of the geography but because the guerrillas and drug traffickers have conspired to damage the radar network of the country," said David Marcus, a Neiman Fellow at Harvard who worked for five years in Colombia.

"The reason is obvious. They fear surveillance planes," Marcus said. "But what they've done is that they've made large parts of the country dangerous for civil aviation as well." Information from Reuters and Associated Press is included in this report.