The son of former President Kennedy died in a plane crash at the age of 38, but not everyone believes it was an accident.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, the media was quick to conclude that the "Kennedy curse" had struck again. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, had both made Kennedy Jr.'s death all the more strange.
Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, just weeks after his father became president. So his life began in the glamorous world of the White House.
But the life of Kennedy Jr., affectionately known to the American public as “John-John,” was marked by tragedy early on. Just three days before his third birthday, his father was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The image of the three-year-old standing in saluting at the funeral in Washington, D.C., three days later is etched in the American mind.
From that point on, Kennedy Jr. struggled to find a balance between carrying his father's legacy and wanting to be his own person. "If I stopped and thought about it all, I would collapse from grief," he once told a friend.
Kennedy Jr., aged three, salutes the casket of former President John F. Kennedy in Washington, DC on November 25, 1963. Photo: ATI
He attended Brown University and New York University School of Law, becoming a paralegal in New York after failing the bar exam twice. In 1995, Kennedy Jr. founded his own magazine, George.
The son of the late US president was named "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine in 1998 and had several celebrity relationships before marrying Carolyn Bessette, a media representative for the famous fashion brand Calvin Klein, in 1996.
Although Kennedy Jr. seemed to have it all in terms of fame, career, and a beautiful wife, he had a difficult time in the months leading up to his death. Kennedy Jr. and Bessette argued over having children, media attention, and his time spent at George magazine.
In July, the two put aside their personal problems to attend the wedding of their cousin Rory Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy's youngest daughter. However, they never made it to the ceremony.
On the evening of July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, and his sister-in-law arrived at Essex County Airport near Fairfield, New Jersey. He decided to fly his Piper Saratoga light aircraft despite an injured ankle. One of his flight instructors offered to accompany him, but he declined.
At 8:38 p.m., they took off with plans to take his sister-in-law to Martha's Vineyard, then the Kennedys continued on to the wedding venue in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. However, the incident occurred on the first leg of the journey.
About 62 minutes after takeoff, Kennedy Jr.'s plane dropped to 2,500 feet when it was about 20 miles from Martha's Vineyard Airport. Then, in less than 30 seconds, the plane dropped another 650 feet and disappeared from radar screens.
On July 21, US Navy divers found the bodies of Kennedy Jr. and the other two men nearly 13 km off shore, at a depth of 35 m. Autopsies showed that all three died from impact. At the time of the accident, Kennedy was 38 years old, his wife was 33 years old, and his sister-in-law was 34 years old.
The reason given for the crash was simple. The US National Transportation Safety Board in 2000 assessed that Kennedy Jr. was an inexperienced pilot and lost control of the plane in dark, foggy conditions.
Kennedy Jr.’s ankle injury may have affected his ability to fly the plane. At the time, he had been a pilot for more than a year and had more than 300 hours of flight experience. According to aviation accident investigator Richard Bender, Kennedy Jr. lacked the skills to fly a plane in very low visibility conditions, which requires relying solely on instruments to determine the plane’s condition.
“Without that skill, you can easily get into trouble. Your body and brain tell you that you are in one place, but you are actually in another. This is called spatial disorientation,” Bender explains.
John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette. Photo: Justin Ide
However, over the years, many theories about Kennedy Jr.'s death have emerged.
Some believe Kennedy Jr. was a careful, risk-averse pilot who could have easily completed the flight. His death shocked students at the Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, who said he took safety seriously and that a federal pilot examiner had called him an “excellent pilot” for passing his flight tests.
Some have speculated that Kennedy Jr. may have committed suicide after marital and work problems. Others believe he may have been murdered because he wanted to investigate his father's assassination.
For years, Kennedy Jr. was said to have been obsessed with finding the truth behind the death of the late President John F. Kennedy. A reporter who covered the Kennedy family said, "Kennedy Jr. planned to use his own money to reopen the assassination investigation, and when he died, that would be the end of it."
In recent years, some conspiracy theorists have claimed that Kennedy Jr. is not dead and is now living in Pennsylvania.
Historian Steven M. Gillon, a close friend of Kennedy Jr., said that if the accident had not happened, the late President Kennedy's son might have followed in his father's footsteps.
"In the last years of his life, he was ready to experiment with the idea of running for office, possibly starting with the governorship of New York. Unfortunately, his journey ended on a foggy July night. That leaves us wondering what things would have been like if the tragedy had not happened," Gillon said.
Thanh Tam (According to ATI, People )
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