Sad thing.
Looking at some basic metrics.
Apparantly they reported technical problems 11nm before threshold. Looking at a map of the region that would put them roughly over the shoreline if approaching Runway 18 straight in when things unfolded. At that time they would have roughly been at 3500ft.
If the reports are correct they crashed 1nm short of the VOR which itself is ~3/4 nm from the runway threshold. So they probably roughly dropped 3500ft in 8-9nm.
That would correspond to a Glide ratio of 15-16:1
Optimum L/D and thus glide ratio of an MD80 should be somewhere around 12:1.
This would indicate that the power loss was possibly not complete at least at the beginning, as the config might not have been fully clean and a L/D of 15 would be asking too much of an MD80 anyway. Looking at the map reaching the VOR and the grass area behind it would have been their only chance of not crashing into buildings once past 4-5nm of the shoreline.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place comes to mind...
If reports are correct it is sad they came 1nm short.