Photojournalist - Dick Kraus - Behind the Viewfinder

July 30, 1998

I heard the plane go over. It was sometime after 8:30 PM or so on a cold, drizzly January night in 1990. I was at a meeting in Northport on Long Island, and I remember thinking, “Wow! That guy is really low.” The conversations ceased for a few minutes as the roar and whistle of the low flying jet reverberated through the building. When silence returned, the meeting resumed.

A few hours later, while I was settling into bed for the night, the phone rang. It was Jim Dooley, the head of the Newsday Photo Department.

“Dick, I need you to start real early tomorrow.”

“Sure, Jim.” I responded. “What’s up?”

“A plane crashed up in Cove Neck and I want you there at first light,” he said. I was silent for a moment.

“A plane? What kind of a plane? A small plane?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It was an Avianca 707 with a full compliment of passengers and crew.”

“Shit, Jim. Don’t you want me up there now?” I asked.

“No,” he said. ”We have a couple of photographers up there now. I need you to get there at dawn and relieve one of the guys who will be staying at the scene until you replace him. Be prepared to park down in Oyster Bay and hike up to the site. It'll be a long walk uphill.”

I set the alarm for 4 AM and tried to get to sleep. I was awake before the alarm sounded and poured a cup of coffee into a travel mug and started out. It was still dark and there was a steady, cold drizzle. Oyster Bay Cove is about 15 miles from where I live. As I drove, I listened to the account of the crash on CBS News Radio. The plane had come in from Columbia short on fuel and had missed their first approach. As they swung out over Long Island to make another try, the engines ran dry and the plane crashed in the hilly, wooded, upscale community of Oyster Bay Cove. Although there were survivors, a number of passengers and crew died. Fortunately, the plane crashed between the widely separated houses and no one on the ground was killed or injured. It dawned on me that the roar of low flying jet engines that I had heard last night was the last gasp of the doomed jet liner.

Flares closed off the roadway in Oyster Bay and I had to park in a bird sanctuary started by President Theodore Roosevelt, who lived in Oyster Bay. I put together whatever gear I needed and mindful of the fact that I faced a long, uphill trek, I took only one camera body and a few lenses and a bunch of film. And, in the inky, wet darkness, I began to walk. And I walked and I walked. After an hour it was getting just light enough to make out a couple of guys carrying tv cameras, walking down the road towards me. They were a French tv crew. I asked them how much further it was to the scene and they told me that I wasn't even a third of the way there and I still hadn't reached the hills yet.

Another hour passed and it was light enough to see that the road was taking me past the marshlands that surrounded the cove. I was really getting weary when I heard a car horn sound behind me and to my right. I looked around and saw a black limousine that had slowed and stopped alongside me. I didn’t have the least notion of who it might be until the electric window in the back slid open and I saw the smiling face of Kenny Cynar grinning at me. Ken was the right hand man of the top elected official in Nassau County, Tom Gulotta, the Nassau County Executive, who was seated next to him.

“Jump in, Dick,” Ken shouted. “Unless you’d rather walk.”

I didn’t rather walk, so I jumped.

We exchanged whatever information we had about the crash as we drove up what proved to be a very steep hill. I was grateful for the ride. And as it happened, I soon had reason to be even more grateful.

As we approached the crash site, police had cordoned off the road. I could see a small army of media people standing at the barricade. You couldn't see the plane wreck from that vantage point. The cops, seeing the County Executive's car, waved us right through the line. I skootched down so that my compatriots wouldn’t see me and possibly alert the cops to my presence. We drove a half a mile up the road and parked. It was now light enough to see the crumpled remains of this giant airliner pancaked in the saddle of two hills. One of the huge wings was resting on the patio of one of the mansions in the area. Otherwise, no homes were affected. The plane must have just plopped down on its belly without any more forward movement.

We got out of the car and I started exposing film as quickly as I could, before someone noticed me and sent me back to join the rest of my comrades behind the police lines. The Count Exec and his entourage walked in front towards the plane as I shot my pictures. They gazed at the amazing scene for a few minutes and then turned and walked back towards me as I continued to make photos. I thanked them as they dropped me off at the police lines where I joined the rest of the world's assembled media.

It was a very, very long and wet day. There was no place to escape the constant drizzle and dampness unless you wanted to hike the long road down the hill to town. While the local resident were magnificent towards the police and fire and rescue crews, they barely tolerated the presence of the press. Some of them would let us use their phones and maybe their bathrooms, but for the most part, we just peed in the woods.

Eventually, they let us move in closer to the wreck, but there really wasn't much to shoot other than what I already had. The dead and injured had long since been removed and we weren't allowed in until the FAA had gone over the area collecting the detrius of the tragedy.

Eventually my 6 month old Nikon F-4 quit working and since I had only brought up just the one body, I was pretty much out of commission. There was one spot on the hill where I could reach the office with my hand held two-way radio and I called to see if I could pull out since there really was nothing else going to happen that day and I had no working camera. The desk was afraid to leave the scene untended so I walked down the hill with another Newsday photographer who had joined me and who was ordered back to the office with both our film. I grabbed another camera from my car and he drove me back up the hill as far as he could.

After awhile I was the only newsman left on the hill. Nothing was going to happen that day and everyone else left. I argued with my desk until my radio battery died and then I finally said the Hell with it and walked back down to my car and drove back to the office. I took some flack for deserting my post, but I was able to talk them out of sending another warm body back up there because nothing else was going to happen until the next day.

I sent my dead Nikon back for repair and was told that it was totaled. They said that all of the circuit boards in the base of the camera were fried from being wet. They wouldn’t honor the guarantee because they said I had submerged the camera in a puddle of water. The damned camera had never left my shoulder all the while I was there. I fought them tooth and nail but they wouldn’t relent. This was the first time I had ever had anything bad to say about Nikon and I’ve been using their cameras for about 30 years, at the time. I still use Nikons, but I have to say that that experience left a sour taste in my mouth. Newsday did, however, buy me a new F-4.

The next day Newsday ran a wrap around cover with my shot showing the County Executive and his people walking towards the plane but all you can see are their backs. No faces, nor did Newsday identify who they were..

To this day, whenever I have an assignment with Tom Gulotta, he will turn his back to me and say, “Okay, Dick. I’m ready. Go ahead and shoot.”

Dick Kraus
Staff Photographer
Newsday