From the forests of Santa Marta the mountains run parallel to the shoreline and reach 100 miles to the east. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta rises out of the Caribbean in a sheer, almost vertical ascent to an altitude of 20,000ft, the highest coastal range in the world, its perennial snowcaps dominating the tropical beaches of Colombia's oldest city. 'We have to land and take on fuel, or we're going to crash this airplane.' To say that the plane was not 'cleared' was an understatement at best, but Long said it anyway, and short of announcing the choices they faced, that was about all he said. He keyed the microphone, and said: 'We can't go back.' Nor could they put the aircraft down in nearby Barranquilla or over the border in Venezuela. Long and his crew, who had been airborne for 15 hours, stared stupefied at the instrument panel as if the radio itself were crazy. 'Sir, I am sorry, but you cannot land,' squawked the voice. Bad news in Long's business, of which aviation was only a part, was typically very bad news and transmitted on an air-to-air frequency from a clandestine Colombian landing strip, it had to be that much worse.
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