Drew Weisholtz is a reporter for TODAY Digital, focusing on pop culture, nostalgia and trending stories. He has seen every episode of “Saved by the Bell” at least 50 times, longs to perfect the crane kick from “The Karate Kid” and performs stand-up comedy, while also cheering on the New York Yankees and New York Giants.
John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette, died July 16, 1999, after a plane he was piloting crashed near Martha’s Vineyard. The crash and the aftermath were covered in the March 26 finale of FX’s “Love Story,” which depicts the relationship between JFK Jr.
and Bessette Kennedy. Navy divers recovered the bodies of Kennedy, Bessette Kennedy and Bessette on July 21. According to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board, the probable cause of the accident was 'the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation.' 'Factors in the accident were haze, and the dark night,” the NTSB continued in the report. The flight took off from New Jersey’s Essex County Airport and was scheduled stop in Martha’s Vineyard before its ultimate destination of Hyannis, Massachusetts, where Kennedy and his wife were going to attend the wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy. That wedding would be postposed and she would ultimately get married in August 1999 in Athens. A certified flight instructor who flew with JFK Jr. between May 1998 and July 1999 said, per the report, “he would not have felt comfortable with the accident pilot conducting night flight operations on a route similar to the one flown on, and in weather conditions similar to those that existed on, the night of the accident.” The CFI also spoke with Kennedy the day of the crash and shared his final sentiment. “The CFI further stated that he had talked to the pilot on the day of the accident and offered to fly with him on the accident flight. He stated that the accident pilot replied that ‘he wanted to do it alone.’” Kennedy, who passed his private pilot flight test on April 22, 1998, had flown about 72 hours without a CFI onboard, and had spent roughly 36 hours flying the Piper Saratoga — the plane that crashed that he also owned — with more than nine of those hours taking place at night. Three hours were without a CFI. Kennedy had also flown 35 flight legs from the New Jersey airport to the Martha’s Vineyard/Hyannis area, 17 of those occurring without a CFI accompanying him.
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