COVE NECK N.Y.--A Colombian Boeing 707 with more than 140 people aboard crashed in fog and rain last night while on approach to Kennedy International Airport, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens, authorities said.

Avianca Flight 52 en route from Bogota crashed at about 9:45 p.m. in a sparsely populated area of northern Long Island, breaking into several pieces, Kennedy airport officials said.

"There were just dead bodies all over the place...It was the worst thing you ever saw," an unidenitified young man who arrived at the scene told WNBC-TV.

At least nine people were confirmed dead, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Early reports from hospitals had at least 33 people hospitalized and others en route.

Doctors on the scene said at least 80 survivors were being cared for there, CBS-TV reported. The FAA knew of at least 30 survivors, Bergen said.

Many ambulances and helicopters were at the scene, where bloodied victims were lined up on stretchers. Some passengers were seen lying motionless. Others, including children, were conscious and apparently not seriously hurt as they were helped from the wreckage.

Kennedy's control tower lost contact with Flight 52 at 9:34 p.m. when the Boeing 707 was about 15 miles northeast of the airport after a five-hour flight, said Port Authority Police Officer Phil Montouri.

Montouri said "there was no radio communication at all to the tower. It just went down."

The plane had missed one approach to Kennedy and gone around a second time, according to the FAA's Bergen. CNN reported that the plane ran out of fuel before it crashed.

The jet broke into four pieces upon impact, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Jeff Crawley. There was less than half a mile of visibility and it was raining at the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service.

Steve Ulman, a Cove Neck resident, said the plane narrowly missed a house and crashed three houses away from one owned by tennis star John McEnroe.

The airliner went down in the town of Cove Neck, located at about the same place where the tower lost contact, said Officer Peter Franzone of the Nassau County police. The plane carried 142 passengers and a crew of seven, authorities said.

Caracol Radio in Colombia, however, reported there were 151 people aboard, but did not differentiate between passengers and crew.

According to Radio Colombiana, Flight 52 left Bogota with a stopover in Medellin, the city known for its notorious cocaine cartel, en route to New York.

The control tower at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport said the Avianca airliner left Bogota at 1:30 p.m. EST, arrived at Medellin 2:02 p.m. then left Medellin at 5:30 p.m. and was scheduled to land in New York at 10 p.m. EST.