On July 15, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. began what would be the final 24 hours of his life. He was more than a celebrity; he was American royalty, a cultural icon.
Early that evening, John met his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren at the Stanhope Hotel bar in New York City. He was nursing a broken ankle, sustained six weeks earlier when he crash-landed his ultralight aircraft. The three had planned to fly to the wedding of John’s cousin Rory Kennedy, but there was a problem. John’s marriage was in trouble, and Carolyn did not want to go.
John had moved out of the couple’s Tribeca loft and into a room at the Stanhope just two days earlier. The couple had fought, and Carolyn was known for holding onto anger. He stayed at a hotel to give the argument space, not to signal a permanent separation.
Carolyn had been overwhelmed by the public attention that followed John everywhere. She had worked in public relations and seemed to love the limelight, but after the honeymoon, she struggled. Photographers waited outside their apartment, and she would stay inside for days.
In an effort to broker a compromise, Carolyn’s sister Lauren pressured the couple to meet for drinks. She encouraged them to put aside their differences for the weekend and go to the wedding as planned. John cherished Kennedy family gatherings; they were a chance to shed his public persona and relax with people who had shared triumphs and tragedies with him all his life.
Carolyn finally agreed. They would all fly together the next afternoon. They had just 23 hours to live.
John Kennedy Jr. lived his entire life in the public eye. He was America’s most eligible bachelor and, according to People magazine, the sexiest man alive. He dated film stars and married socialite Carolyn Bessette. He grew up surrounded by media lights, yet he maintained an innocence about him.
There was endless speculation about whether he would follow in the footsteps of a father he never knew. Thirty-eight years earlier, John Jr. had made history as the first child born to a U.S. president-elect. John and Jackie Kennedy took Washington by storm, ushering in a new era of culture and glamour.
John and his sister Caroline’s enchanted childhood was constantly documented by an adoring media. The Kennedys were the first television administration, a young, vibrant, charismatic couple with two golden children. Little John caught everyone’s hearts.
But this idyllic time would be cut short by tragedy. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The president was buried on John’s third birthday. John often said he remembered nothing of his father, not even the famous scene where he saluted the funeral carriage. The image would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The assassination changed everything. The White House closed up like a clamshell, filled with deathly silence. Two weeks later, John left the White House, where he had spent the first three years of his life. Jackie moved her children to Georgetown, but they were surrounded by paparazzi and tourists. In less than a year, Jackie fled with her children to New York City.
Desperate for a father figure for her young son, Jackie turned to Bobby Kennedy. Robert Kennedy’s courage and determination to run for the presidency made a huge impression on John. But on June 6, 1968, just five years after his father’s death, John’s uncle Robert was shot and killed. Seven-year-old John Jr. was fatherless again.
The media speculated endlessly about the tragedies and dubbed it the curse of the Kennedys. On John’s last day, the curse would strike again.
John Kennedy Jr. had 14 hours to live. He had reconciled with his wife the night before, and she agreed to join him at the family wedding at Martha’s Vineyard. John planned to take Carolyn and her sister Lauren in his light aircraft. They planned to leave at 5:30 that afternoon.
John had a busy day ahead. He was already tired, having worked late preparing a new business plan to save George, his political magazine. That morning, he presented his plan to the bosses at Hachette Filipacchi publishing. John’s hopes for his future depended on the outcome of the meeting.
The publisher told him the magazine was over. They were not going to pick up his contract after five years. John knew the CEO was tough, but he was determined to turn the situation around. He wanted to expand the George brand and get more of his editors and content onto television and the internet.
Hachette wanted John to trade on the Kennedy name, but John had other ideas. He said he did not want his name taken advantage of by the company. With his charm offensive, the meeting went better than expected. He managed to buy himself some time.
By the age of eight, John Kennedy Jr. had lost both his father and his uncle to assassinations. Jackie feared the Kennedys were being killed and her children were next. This led to her marriage to Aristotle Onassis, the richest man on the planet. The marriage was pounced on by the media and made international headlines.
The American public was outraged, feeling Jackie had betrayed the sacred memory of her fallen hero. But Onassis lavished time, love, and money on John Jr. John liked him and found him an interesting, avuncular figure.
This oasis of calm did not last. Within three years, the marriage began to fall apart. Then tragedy struck again. Onassis lost his only son, Alexander, in a plane crash. Unable to cope with his loss, Ari severed all ties with young John. For the third time in less than ten years, John Jr. lost a father figure.
Just after midday, John was busy in his Manhattan office. He had deadlines and was responsible for pushing the next issue of George out the door. It was a stressful pace. At 1:00 p.m., he called Essex Airport and arranged for his Piper Saratoga to be fueled and ready for 5:30 p.m.
As the afternoon unfolded, his departure plan would be delayed. A pilot he regularly flew with called to ask if he needed a co-pilot. John inexplicably refused the offer. He was a careful pilot, but he knew he was not a great one. Why he did not take the pilot with him is something we will never know.
At 4:30 p.m., the drive to Essex Airport would take about an hour. If he was going to make his 5:30 departure and fly in daylight, he should have left then. But John took time to email a friend to offer condolences on the death of his mother.
Running late, John called his publisher and postponed their meeting until the following week. At 5:00 p.m., he called another friend and said he could not make an anniversary celebration. At 6:32 p.m., John logged onto the Weather Service. He read that conditions were hazy with visibility of five miles.
John failed to consider that the measuring device only saw what was directly above it. A clear sky over the machine did not mean there was no fog nearby. John had not flown alone in his Piper Saratoga since breaking his ankle six weeks earlier. But he was too busy putting out fires at George magazine to calmly evaluate his plan.
At 6:40 p.m., John left the office more than two hours later than intended. He had neglected to calculate the additional time he would lose driving in Friday rush hour traffic. He had made a number of errors in judgment that afternoon. In less than three hours, he would be dead.
Years earlier, John had celebrated his 16th birthday at the Kennedy Compound. Despite the tragedies he had faced, friends said he embraced life with energy and enthusiasm. He was curious and wanted to see everything and do everything.
John was at best an average student. He had difficulty concentrating and was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. He started taking medication as a teenager and saw a therapist. His mother wanted him to toughen up and experience life away from the compound. She sent him to Guatemala as a Peace Corps volunteer and on an Outward Bound survival course.
During this period, John discovered a new passion: acting. He loved it. He was charming on stage and in his element. Acting gave him the freedom to be someone other than himself.
Deliberately avoiding Princeton and Harvard, where his father had studied, John enrolled at Brown University. Jackie watched over him closely, often in ways he did not know. She got his grades and called his professors.
Jackie made sure John knew he must fulfill his duties as a Kennedy. When he wanted to apply to drama school, Jackie insisted he study law instead. Succumbing to intense pressure, John reluctantly entered New York University Law School.
John was already more than two hours late for his scheduled flight. It was almost 7:00 p.m. when he picked up Lauren. Driving in Friday rush hour traffic, it would take over an hour to get to the airport. He would be forced to make the last crucial minutes of his flight in darkness.
With no break in traffic, John and Lauren were still at least 45 minutes from the airport. He could have called to reschedule the flight, but he did not.
Carolyn had spent the afternoon shopping for a dress for the wedding. She decided to travel alone to Essex Airport. She too was stuck in traffic. She did not confer with John and her sister about the delay.
Carolyn and John had always had a tempestuous relationship. They met when she was a shopping consultant for Calvin Klein. John fell madly in love. They were America’s golden couple, but cracks had begun to appear.
John had been accused of being insensitive. Some said Carolyn was controlling and a skilled manipulator. They were two powerful personalities who could not seem to get along, even though they believed they were meant for each other. They talked about kids and about him becoming a senator.
John began his career in law as an assistant district attorney in New York City. Jackie was proud of her son, but her plans for his future would soon be derailed. John did not enjoy being a lawyer. He was too nice to be a prosecutor.
John became restless and dreamed of starting a political magazine. But the greatest obstacle would again be tragedy. When John was 33, Jackie Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer. John put his dreams aside and devoted himself to the care of his mother. Five months later, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was dead.
For John, it was extraordinarily sad, but it was also the birth of a man. He came out of it with her spirit firmly behind him. Jackie was gone, and although devastated, John was now finally free to chart his own destiny. She had told him on her deathbed to go use his name.
Delayed by the office and then by rush hour traffic, John arrived at Essex Airport almost three hours behind schedule. He had less than two hours to live. John dropped Lauren off at the terminal to wait for Carolyn while he drove to a nearby convenience store.
He was relaxed, even though the sun was setting and bad weather was moving in. Another pilot who had just landed and was aware of the reduced visibility tried to warn John. If this pilot had found him, John might have changed his mind about flying. But John was at the convenience store, calmly signing autographs.
John had decided before making the trip that he would do it by himself. He felt his ankle was good and he was ready to go. For John, the physical limitation was a challenge. That was the Kennedy way.
It was now 8:25 p.m. John had originally planned to make the trip in daylight. Leaving now meant he would soon be flying in the dark over the Atlantic Ocean.
Tragically, one of Jackie Kennedy’s last wishes would have saved her son’s life had he kept his word. She had exacted a promise from John that he would not pursue flying lessons after her death. But after her death, he resumed them.
John could not resist his passion for flying. He began with ultralight planes, then bought a Cessna and quickly got his pilot’s license. Three months before he died, John purchased a Piper Saratoga, a much faster, more powerful aircraft. Flying was his escape route from all the public attention.
The year after his mother’s death, John fulfilled an ambition she would have been proud of. He launched his political magazine, George, to huge critical acclaim. He loved the creative process and the fact that he had come up with a business idea that made sense. It was journalism he loved.
It was a vision that tragically would never be realized.
It was now 8:35 p.m. Only an hour of daylight remained. John should have left at 5:30.
At 8:34 p.m., John contacted air traffic control. The conditions on the ground were slightly hazy. John was only certified for visual flight rules, or VFR. The theory behind VFR is that the pilot can maneuver the airplane by looking out the window and determining the plane’s relationship to the horizon. When the horizon is not visible, the pilot is essentially flying blind.
John had very limited expertise in instrument navigation and was not certified for it. As they took off, John had left a goodwill note which he would never read.
John’s departure was so late that Lauren’s hosts for the weekend on Martha’s Vineyard arrived to pick her up just as she was leaving. John could have filed a flight plan as he left, but he did not.
Daylight was rapidly diminishing. In less than an hour, John, Carolyn, and Lauren would be dead.
A year earlier, it seemed John Kennedy Jr. was set to fulfill the expectations of an adoring American public. His magazine George was doing well, he was moving in the right political circles, and he had found the woman he wanted to spend his life with.
Foil intense media speculation, he orchestrated a secret wedding on Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast. The wedding made headlines around the world. They were portrayed as the perfect couple.
But sparks flew between Carolyn and John from the moment they met. She was strong-willed and had her own point of view. The media onslaught was unbearable for Carolyn. There was always someone lurking around to take her picture or invade her space.
Then rumors of Carolyn’s drug use began to surface in the tabloids. Next, John was spotted with ex-girlfriends, and affairs were suspected, something his friends dispute. Most damaging, John’s magazine began to fail, and his ability to live up to his father’s legacy was questioned.
John hoped to save his marriage. He wanted his magazine to thrive again. He wanted to establish his own reputation. All he needed was time.
The sun had set. It was nautical twilight, hazy but not totally obscure. It would be completely dark in ten minutes. For now, John was still able to fly with visual references.
Flying over water at night, the horizon is lost. The pilot is solely referencing instruments.
Twenty minutes from his destination, John had two possible routes. He could fly up the coast to Connecticut and Rhode Island, keeping the lights on the shoreline as a visual reference, then turn south over Cape Cod. This route would only add five minutes to his flight time.
Or he could take a riskier but shorter route and leave the coast, flying a direct line straight out over Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of 34 miles from the airport at Martha’s Vineyard.
Choosing the route was a pivotal decision. John chose to fly the direct route out over the ocean into the void. This choice would cost him his life.
In just two minutes, John would be flying in complete darkness. In five minutes, he would be dead.
John was flying at 5,500 feet in complete darkness. He was 34 miles from the airport at Martha’s Vineyard. He could not see any visual landmarks, but he started to descend.
At 9:39 p.m., there was still no sign of the lights at the airport. John leveled off at 2,500 feet and searched desperately for some visual reference. He started to become disoriented.
Spatial disorientation occurs when you do not refer to your instruments. The natural tendency is to believe what your body is telling you. John did not have enough experience in his new plane and was ill-equipped to fly in these conditions. He relied on his instincts just when he needed to focus on his instruments.
The plane now banked sharply to the left and climbed. At 9:40 p.m., trying desperately to compensate for the left bank, he turned the yoke hard to the right. The plane slid into a descent, speeding toward the ocean.
Completely disoriented, John believed the plane was level and yanked the yoke towards him to bring the nose up. Instead, the plane banked even more to the right. The engine raced as it picked up speed and entered a freefall called the graveyard spiral.
The Saratoga plummeted towards the ocean. There was no way John could recover.
Around the world, feelings of shock and disbelief resonated as news spread of John Kennedy Jr.’s disappearance. The media descended on Martha’s Vineyard as a massive search was ordered.
John Kennedy Jr. died on the 16th of July 1999. Six days later, on the USS Briscoe, the Kennedys once again gathered to bury one of their own as an entire nation mourned.
With his death, the world would never know what his true contribution might have been.