Pictures of the upright tail section were shown repeatedly being pulled out of Jamaica Bay--which indicates clearly that it came off first, inasmuch as the crash location in Queens is further along in the flight path.
It showed no damage, by the way.
Sigh. When did they stop teaching physics in school?
Throw a large rock and a large piece of plywood. Which is going to travel farther?
Even if the tail came off last (by a few seconds -- when planes come apart they do it in a hurry), it would tumble and quickly come to a halt in its horizontal trajectory, ending up dropping pretty much straight down from the point of separation. The fuselage and engines, however, being javelin and rock shaped, respectively, would have sailed a lot farther in the direction of the plane's flight before air resistance slowed their forward trajectory and brought them arcing to the ground.
The break-up occurred at about ten thousand feet, the aerodynamics of the separated parts is going to be the biggest factor on where they ended up landing.