On the evening of July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. took off from Essex County Airport in New Jersey. He was flying his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, to Martha’s Vineyard. The plan was to drop Lauren off before continuing to Hyannis Port for a family wedding the next day.
Kennedy had flown this route 35 times before. But this time, something went terribly wrong. As he began his descent toward Martha’s Vineyard, the aircraft turned right and began descending. Then it veered left and climbed. Kennedy never made any radio calls for help. Moments later, the plane spiraled into the ocean, killing everyone on board.
John F. Kennedy Jr. was 38 years old. He was the only son of President John F. Kennedy and had been born just weeks after his father was elected president. He earned a law degree from New York University and was the founder and editor-in-chief of George, a political lifestyle magazine.
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was 33. She worked as a publicist for Calvin Klein, and her relationship with Kennedy had become a constant target of the paparazzi. Lauren Bessette was 34 and is often described as the forgotten victim in the tragedy.
Investigators first looked closely at Kennedy’s experience and training as a pilot. He began receiving flight instruction in October 1982. Over the next six years, he flew with six different instructors and logged 47 hours of flight time, but only one hour of that was solo. He stopped flying in 1988 and did not start again until December 1997.
That month, he attended training at FlightSafety International in Florida. Over a four-month period, he logged 53 hours of flight time, including 10 hours solo, and earned his private pilot license in April 1998. His instructors had nothing negative to say about his handling of the training.
After getting his license, Kennedy spent a lot of time flying a Cessna 182 and continued receiving instruction from a local flight school. Over the rest of 1998, he logged about 179 hours of flight time, including 65 hours with an instructor. In March 1999, he passed the FAA’s written instrument exam and returned to FlightSafety International to begin training for his instrument rating.
His primary instructor during that training said his progression was normal and that he had all the basic skills needed to complete the course. Kennedy completed about half of the lessons before leaving the school on April 24, 1999, about three months before the crash. During that training, he logged over 13 hours of flight time with an instructor and almost 17 hours of simulator time.
Kennedy purchased a 1995 Piper PA-32 Saratoga on April 28, 1999, just four days after leaving the instrument flight school. The aircraft was a single-engine low-wing plane often used for business trips. It was equipped with an autopilot that could hold altitude and heading, though some pilots reported the system required active management during high-workload situations.
According to the investigation, Kennedy flew the Saratoga with at least three different flight instructors. One instructor flew three flights with him, including a flight to Martha’s Vineyard in instrument meteorological conditions. That instructor said Kennedy’s skills and ability to handle multiple tasks while flying were average for his level of experience.
A second instructor flew with Kennedy to Martha’s Vineyard on July 1, just two weeks before the crash. That flight was conducted at night and also in instrument conditions. During the flight, Kennedy reportedly had no issues using the autopilot.
A third instructor made six or seven flights with Kennedy to Martha’s Vineyard and said most of those flights were conducted at night. He also said Kennedy had no trouble flying the plane and was very cautious about his aviation decision-making. However, that instructor also told investigators that on one or two occasions, the autopilot would turn to a heading other than the one selected, requiring it to be disengaged and then re-engaged. He did not think the problem was significant.
In the 15 months before the crash, Kennedy had flown about 35 flights to or from the Martha’s Vineyard area. About half of those flights were without an instructor, including at least five at night. He had logged about 310 hours of total flight time, with 55 of those hours at night and about 72 hours as pilot in command without an instructor on board.
Kennedy also had about 36 hours in the Piper Saratoga, of which 9.4 hours were at night and 3 hours were without a flight instructor. Of those 3 hours without an instructor, only 0.8 were flown at night. Even though he was familiar with the route, he had very little experience in the Saratoga and even less flying that aircraft by himself at night.
Investigators identified several contributing factors to the crash. The first was that Kennedy had fractured his left ankle during a paragliding accident on Memorial Day weekend. His cast was removed the day before the crash. Witnesses said he was using crutches while loading luggage onto the plane. The pain from that injury could have been a significant distraction.
The second factor was stress. Kennedy and Carolyn were going through marriage counseling, and Carolyn did not want to go on the trip. They argued about it, but she eventually agreed to go to avoid media scrutiny. On top of that, Kennedy’s magazine, George, was reportedly losing about $4 million a year.
The third factor was fatigue. Kennedy attended a Yankees game the night before the flight and hung out with friends afterward. He reportedly did not get back to his hotel until around 2 a.m. He probably only had about five hours of sleep and had been awake for over 12 hours when he started the flight.
The fourth factor was the timing of the takeoff. The flight was originally scheduled to depart between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m., with sunset at 8:22. The flight time was only about an hour and 15 minutes, so the original plan would have had them landing about 30 to 45 minutes before sunset. But Kennedy worked late, had to pick up Lauren, and got to the airport around 8:00 p.m. Carolyn was delayed by traffic and did not arrive until 20 minutes later, right at sunset.
Instead of flying during the day, they would be flying in darkness. Although Kennedy was legal to fly VFR at night, this can be very challenging for a pilot without much experience.
The weather was also a factor. Kennedy got a weather briefing about two hours before takeoff. At that time, Essex County had clear skies with four miles visibility due to haze. Martha’s Vineyard also had clear skies with six miles visibility due to haze. But those observations were made at 6 p.m., and Kennedy did not take off until 2.5 hours later. Visibility was gradually getting worse because of the haze.
One pilot who landed at Essex County just before Kennedy took off wanted to warn him that the visibility was worse than forecast but was unable to find him. Even so, conditions were still VFR, meaning the flight was legal. But being legal does not always mean it is a good idea.
Night flying is very different from day flying. It is harder to see outside visual references, and pilots must rely on flight instruments much more. On the night of the crash, the moon was just a sliver and provided almost no illumination. This is especially dangerous when flying over large bodies of open water, where lights on the water can look like stars and the horizon can blend in with the water, particularly in hazy conditions.
Kennedy took off around 8:38 p.m. The controller instructed him to make a right downwind departure. Kennedy acknowledged, and that was the last radio call he ever made. He departed to the northeast, initially staying below 2,000 feet before climbing to 5,500 feet for the cruise portion of the flight.
The cruise altitude likely kept him above some of the haze, allowing for greater visibility. This may have given him a false sense of confidence that visibility would be good at lower altitudes, even though he would be in the middle of the haze. A safer option would have been to point back toward land and fly directly over the coastline until he was much closer to Martha’s Vineyard.
Instead, Kennedy continued on a direct path toward the island. When he was about 34 miles from the airport, he began his initial descent. During the descent, he began a right turn to the south. About 30 seconds later, he stopped the descent at 2,200 feet and began a climb back to 2,500 feet, continuing to the southeast, away from Martha’s Vineyard.
That turn put the shoreline directly behind him and left him staring at a dark and empty ocean. Because the haze had reduced visibility to only about two miles, he most likely could not see the horizon or any semblance of land to know which way was up or down.
About 50 seconds later, Kennedy began a left turn and climbed to 2,600 feet before beginning a descent at a rate of 900 feet per minute. A few seconds later, he reversed the turn back to the right, and the bank increased to over 45 degrees. As he continued to descend, airspeed increased to over 180 knots. Eventually, the descent rate exceeded 4,700 feet per minute as the aircraft spiraled down into the ocean, killing everyone on board instantly.
There has been much debate about what happened in the final moments. Some critics argued the aircraft got too slow and entered a right spin, and that Kennedy’s ankle injury prevented him from applying full left rudder to recover. But the NTSB ruled out that scenario. The data showed what happened was a graveyard spiral.
A graveyard spiral occurs when a pilot is disoriented and thinks they are flying wings level when in reality they are in a descending turn. The pilot notices the altitude decreasing and airspeed increasing, then pulls back on the controls to climb and slow down. But because they are in a turn, this only tightens the turn, increasing airspeed and the rate of descent until the aircraft hits the ground.
The weather conditions that night made it extremely challenging, if not impossible, for a VFR-only pilot to fly over the water. Kennedy did not have enough instrument training or experience in the Saratoga to handle the situation. Although he could have used the autopilot to help recover and maintain level flight, the NTSB determined the autopilot was not in use at the time of the crash.
One shocking detail is that if they were not dropping off Lauren at Martha’s Vineyard, the flight to Hyannis Port would have been almost entirely over land. Kennedy probably could have maintained visual reference to the horizon because of all the cultural lighting.
Another detail is that one of Kennedy’s instructors had talked to him earlier on the day of the crash and offered to fly the trip with him. Kennedy replied that he wanted to do it alone.
We will never know why he rejected that offer. But the bottom line is that Kennedy was pilot in command and responsible for the safety of the flight. Even though his disorientation caused the crash, he never should have taken off to begin with.