Aviation Expert Details Final Moments of JKF Jr.’s Plane Crash

Aviation experts have revealed what caused the airplane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1999. The late President’s 38-year-old son was traveling with his wife and sister-in-law when his Piper Saratoga aircraft plunged into the water near Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Initially, some people said Kennedy had been reckless and placed lives in danger because he did not have enough flying experience, and expert Jeff Guzzetti noted this may have played its part. 

Guzzetti said Mr. Kennedy was forced to rely on internal instruments to gauge conditions, which may have challenged an inexperienced flyer. Mr. Guzzetti further noted that “there are no visual clues” when flying in night skies. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the incident and determined that the “probable cause” was “spatial disorientation” and a subsequent failure to maintain control “during a descent over water at night.” 

Rosemary Terenzo and Liz McNeil’s upcoming book describes the incident in detail. It claims that the Piper Saratoga was a more complex plane than Kennedy was used to flying and that it was dark by the time he departed from Caldwell Airport in New Jersey. 

In the book entitled “JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography,” Jeff Guzzetti outlined the route and said Kennedy flew along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastlines and then pivoted out to sea around Martha’s Vineyard. “As soon as he turned out to the black ocean,” Guzzetti notes, he was entirely reliant on aircraft instruments. 

The aviation expert who worked with the National Transportation Safety Board at the time stated that the manner of the plane’s descent is known as the “graveyard spiral.” This occurs when the aircraft’s nose drops downward and begins to spin “like going down a drain.” 

The book also reveals that Ann Freeman, mother of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Lauren Bessette, who both died in the crash, warned them not to take the flight and reportedly told Kennedy never to fly with both of her daughters at the same time.