On Mt. Tablazo

South above the green Magdalena River Valley droned a big four-motored DC-4 on one of the world's most famed time-saving runs; by boat or train it is four days from steamy, coastal Barranquilla to highland Bogota, by air 2 1/4 hours. This run had the usual vanload of time-savers --49 passengers (including five U.S. businessmen) plus a crew of four.

At Bogota the airport radio operator for the airline (Avianca, a subsidiary of Pan American World Airways) received a routine message: the DC-4 was 30 minutes out, would soon ask for landing instructions. For several hours there was no more. Then came a message from upcountry. Thirty miles north of the field, Avianca's DC-4 nad crashed into the vertical, cloud-shrouded face of Mt. Tablazo. a 9,000-foot peak in the Sierra Sabana range. Then it fell flaming, 1,000 feet into the ravine below. The DC-4's 53 were dead, in the worst crash in airline history.

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