Following last night's meeting, Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson praised members of Piedrahita's rooming group for the support they had given others and each other.

"I am deeply moved by the manner in which the roommates and suitemates set to work notifying friends and doing everything they could to console others in the face of their own grief," Hanson said.

President Neil L. Rudenstine, who has written a letter of condolence to Piedrahita's family, expressed his sadness at the tragedy in an interview Wednesday.

"It's terrible.... This is just the worst sort of thing. It couldn't be more devastating," Rudenstine said.

Piedrahita was traveling from Miami to Cali with his childhood friend Ariel Felton, who attended Wellesley College.

The crash was the deadliest involving a United States airliner since a Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. Terrorists were blamed for that crash, which killed 270 people.

Authorities said a full investigation into the causes of the crash would not be completed for months.

But a report released by the Colombian government last Friday after a review of a transcript of the cockpit conversation during the half-hour before the crash indicated that it may have been the result of human error.

The report ruled out sabotage, bad weather, language difficulties and a malfunction of the Boeing 757's systems as possible causes of the crash.

According to transcripts obtained from the plane's two "black box" recording devices, the crew in the plane's cockpit was engaged in a discussion of a "non-pertinent" nature. News reports said the crew were discussing labor issues rather than engaging in pre-landing procedures.

According to the report, the flight crew mistakenly set the plane's automatic pilot for a navigational aid outside the city, causing the plane to turn off course.

After a brief discussion of how to return to the flight path, the crew steered the plane toward a mountain and attempted to fly over it, but failed to clear by 200 feet.

An article in yesterday's Boston Globe reported that American Airlines has released a statement saying alcohol was found in the blood of the plane's captain.

The statement said that further tests would be conducted to determine whether the pilot had consumed the alcohol or whether its presence was the natural result of "chemical processes following death by blunt trauma."

Because of the mountainous terrain, recovering victims was difficult and notification of some families was delayed for several days.

Tessitore said house tutors brought meals to their Winthrop suite while they waited for word and grieved with friends. "We're trying to figure out how to go back to the library--if there's a way you can do that after something like this. So far we haven't found it," he said