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John F. Kennedy, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For John Kennedy Jr., Australian footballer, see John Kennedy, Jr. (footballer).
| John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. | |
|---|---|
 John F. Kennedy Jr. greets invited guests at the HBO and Imagine Entertainment premiere held at Kennedy Space Center |
|
| Born | November 25, 1960 Washington, D.C., U.S.A. |
| Died | July 16, 1999 (aged 38) Atlantic Ocean |
| Occupation | lawyer and journalist |
| Spouse | Carolyn Bessette |
| Children | none |
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999), often referred to as John F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK Jr., John Jr., John Kennedy or John-John, was an American lawyer, journalist, socialite and publisher. He was the son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the younger brother of Caroline Kennedy (as well as the older brother of the deceased Patrick Bouvier Kennedy).
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Born 17 days after his father was elected to the presidency, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was in the public spotlight from infancy. He had lived for most of the first three years of his life in the White House and under the eye of the media who adored his antics. The nickname "John-John" came from a reporter mishearing his father calling him ("John" spoken twice in quick succession), and the name stuck. His father was assassinated on November 22, 1963, three days before Kennedy, Jr.'s third birthday.
The funeral procession actually took place on his birthday, November 25, 1963. While his father's flag-draped casket was being carried out from St. Matthew's Cathedral, young JFK, Jr. stepped forward, and in one of the most heartbreaking and iconic images of the 1960s gave his father a final salute.[1]
John, Jr. grew up primarily on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Even as a boy, he was often photographed and still referred to publicly as "John-John", although Kennedy family members themselves did not use the nickname.[2] After his father's death, his mother was married to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis from 1968 until the latter's death in 1975, when John was 14 years old.
John F. Kennedy, Jr. attended The Collegiate School in New York City for the first through tenth grades, and later graduated from the Phillips Academy. Despite a less-than-average academic record, John F. Kennedy, Jr. was accepted into Harvard University, from where his father and sister graduated. John, Jr., however, turned down the offer, wanting to avoid that degree of special treatment, especially because it would have been regarded as undeserved by the public and his peers. Subsequently, Kennedy matriculated at Brown University, graduating in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Brown, Kennedy was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. In 1989, he earned a J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law. He failed the New York bar exam twice before passing on the third try.
He spoke at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. He was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan from 1989 to 1993. In 1995, he founded George, a glossy politics-as-lifestyle monthly which sometimes took editorial aim even at members of his own family. After Kennedy's death, the magazine was bought out by Hachette Filipacchi Magazines[3] and continued for over a year. With falling advertising sales,[3] the magazine folded in early 2001.[4]
Through the 1980s until his death, Kennedy was an often-seen and much-photographed personality in Manhattan. He married Carolyn Bessette on September 21, 1996 on Cumberland Island in Georgia, and had dated Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cindy Crawford and Daryl Hannah prior to his marriage. Furthermore, he was rumoured to have had an affair with Princess Diana, but this was unconfirmed.[4]
On July 16, 1999, at the age of 38, John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Kennedy was piloting a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard where the Kennedy family has a vacation house. Kennedy and his wife were traveling to the wedding of cousin Rory Kennedy, which was then postponed. Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard.
Kennedy was an experienced pilot; he'd flown for seventeen years and had 310 hours of flight experience (by contrast, the FAA requires 250 hours to qualify for a commercial pilot's license), including 55 hours of night flying and 36 hours in the high-performance Piper Saratoga. He had completed about half of an instrument training course. He was not yet rated for flying in low-visibility; but, at the time of his crash, he was flying in conditions that were covered by his license. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation found no evidence of mechanical malfunction and determined that the probable cause 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 report noted that spatial disorientation as a result of continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions is a common cause of fatal airplane accidents.
According to literature found in most FAA-approved flight training books, a pilot's inability to see the horizon can lead to spatial disorientation. The inner ear may give the pilot the impression that the plane is turning when it isn't. It takes many hours of instrument training for a pilot to be able to fly in IFR conditions, conditions that most likely existed when Kennedy was flying on his route to Martha's Vineyard. Over the water at night there are few lights, and those lights that existed were most likely obscured by the haze, resulting in the boundary between sky and water on the horizon becoming difficult to determine.
Kyle Bailey, a pilot believed to have been the last person to see Kennedy alive at Essex County Airport, subsequently stated that he had canceled his own flight to Martha's Vineyard because the enroute weather was "a little too hazy." It also emerged that while Kennedy had flown from Essex County Airport to the Vineyard several times before, he had never done it without an instructor pilot aboard or at night.
Skeptics identify as evidence of foul play many irregularities in the investigation process and many inconsistencies in the official report. For example:
• The Pentagon assumed the role of central clearing house for information. Their reports to the media contained unsubstantiated information and many inaccuracies.
• The official report indicated that no flight log was found. However, many of Kennedy’s flight passengers said he routinely kept the log in a blue duffel bag. The bag washed ashore and was recovered intact but no flight book was in it, suggesting the possibility that it had been intercepted prior to coming ashore.
• The official report stated that JFK Jr. flew without a flight instructor on the fatal flight, though reports by family and friends suggested that an instructor had been on the flight. Kennedy's co-editor Richard Blow stated that Kennedy told him the afternoon of the fatal flight that he would be flying that evening with a flight instructor. These reports are consistent with the fact, as reported in the National Transportation Safety Board report, that Kennedy had always flown his new plane with a flight instructor. Kennedy had access to a dozen flight instructors whom he routinely called on short notice. Since he was working on an instrument rating, flying with an instructor would have helped him accumulate documented flight hours toward that goal. The co-pilot's seat was missing from the retrieved wreckage, further raising suspicions on this point.
• Visibility at Martha's Vineyard on the crash day was eight miles at 9 p.m. and ten miles at 10 p.m., despite the official report's description of "hazy" skies. This is well above the minimum required by Kennedy's visual flight license. Martha's Vineyard's airport was shining its new landing lights the night of Kennedy's crash. These were bright enough to be the subject of complaining letters to the editor in the local paper.
• The search-and-rescue operation was delayed and diverted for 15 hours, despite FAA computer reports and family phone calls indicating that Kennedy was missing. The plane's emergency beacon was transmitted upon the plane's impact and was received by satellite, pinpointing Kennedy's crash site as early as 3:40 a.m the next morning. By 5 a.m., radar records of Kennedy's flight were available that identified the downed plane's location, 19 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard. Yet, for hours, the search continued along the entire flight path and the Pentagon denied that it possessed specific information about the crash site.
• JFK Jr. checked in with the Martha's Vineyard airport at 9:39 p.m., one minute before the plane went down, as reported the morning after the crash by U.S. Coast Guard Public Information Officer Todd Bergun. Bergun's report is consistent to the minute with the NTSB's radar report, which shows Kennedy's plane five minutes away from the airport and beginning its final approach; at that time, contact with the control tower would have been required. When the Pentagon assumed control of the news reporting, it denied that Kennedy contacted the tower.
• The fuel switch on Kennedy's wrecked plane had been turned off, an act that, under normal circumstances, requires intent and cannot be completed by accident.
• Kennedy's plane fell 2,500 feet in 45 seconds, ranging from twelve to fifty times the normal rate of descent. Such a rapid descent suggests a deliberate or uncontrolled nose dive. Speaking through the Pentagon, U.S. Air Force Search and Rescue School Director Lieutenant Colonel Steve Roark said of the plane's path, "It looked like it was on its descent. I didn't see anything unusual."
During the memorial service on July 23, 1999, Kennedy's uncle, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, said, "We dared to think that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But, like his father, he had every gift but length of years." And of his nephew's marriage, he invoked what had been said of his brother's Presidency: both lasted 1,000 days. Then U.S. President Bill Clinton attended the service and ordered that the flag at the White House be lowered to half-staff in honor of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
At President Clinton's orders, warships of the United States Navy assisted in the search for the downed plane. With the permission of Secretary of Defense William Cohen, a memorial service for the three victims was held aboard the Navy ship USS Briscoe. The cremated remains of Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law were then scattered from the ship off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.
A wrongful death lawsuit by the Bessette family against the Kennedy estate concluded with an out of court settlement.[5] This avoided the publicity of a public trial, as the accident was ultimately attributed to pilot error.
- ^ Lucas, Dean (2007-07-22). Famous Pictures Magazine - JFK jr salutes JFK (HTML). Famous Pictures Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
- ^ Kennedy, Year in Review, CNN.
- ^ a b Bercovici, Jeff. Hachette delivers death ax to George. Media Life Magazine. 2001.
- ^ a b CNN Transcript: Reliable Sources: 'George' Folds. 6 January 2001.
- ^ Biography of Carolyn Bessette.
- Kennedy Curse
- Kennedy family
- John F. Kennedy assassination
- Robert F. Kennedy assassination
- Sensory illusions in aviation
- Spatial disorientation
- Bárány chair
- The Day the Music Died, and Roger Peterson (pilot)
- Flash Airlines Flight 604
- Air India Flight 855
- John F. Kennedy, Jr. website
- John F. Kennedy, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
- National Transportation Safety Board investigation final report
- Web of conspiracy surrounds JFK Jr.'s death
- JFK Jr's political donations
- CNN.com In-depth coverage of JFK Jr's death
- Kennedy's body, airplane wreckage found
- John F. Kennedy, Jr. at the Notable Names Database
- Regarding JFK Jr.'s burial at sea
- JFK II & The Assassination of JFK, Jr.
- If William Shakespear was still alive, we all know what he would call this tragedy: Unfortunate Son
| Preceded by Harry Hamlin |
People's Sexiest Man Alive 1988 |
Succeeded by Sean Connery |
| Child of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Caroline Kennedy |
Kennedy Child
(By order of birth) |
Succeeded by Patrick Bouvier Kennedy |
Categories: 1960 births | 1999 deaths | Accidents and incidents in general aviation | American aviators | American businesspeople | American magazine publishers (people) | American Roman Catholics | American socialites | Brown University alumni | Children of Presidents of the United States | French Americans | Irish-American writers | John F. Kennedy | Kennedy family | New York lawyers | New York University School of Law alumni | People from Manhattan | People from Washington, D.C. | Phillips Academy alumni | Plane crash victims | Plane crash victims in the United States | The Collegiate School alumni