 JFK
Jr.
 Carolyn
Bessette
 Lauren
G. Bessette
|
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.
was born on November 25, 1960, only weeks after his father was elected
president. He was the first child born to a president-elect and the first
infant to live in the White House since the Cleveland administration. Three
years later, the world watched as the three year old, on his birthday,
saluted his father's casket as it passed by. Two weeks after the funeral,
his mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, moved John Jr. and his sister, Caroline,
out of the White House to Manhattan, where she made every attempt to raise
her children as normally as possible, out of the public eye. Kennedy attended
Manhattan's Collegiate School for Boys and graduated from the elite Phillips
Academy in Andover. Unlike many of the Kennedy men who attended Harvard,
John went to Brown University, graduating in 1993. After flirting with
an acting career, John enrolled in New York University's Law School, a
move many now say was motivated by his mother's wishes. He failed the bar
twice. On the third try, he passed and in August 1989, he was hired as
an assistant prosecutor in the New York district attorney's office. He
left in 1993. After amassing an impressive 6-0 record from 1989 to 1993,
he resigned.
The avenue Kennedy chose was publishing.
In 1995 he launched George magazine, a glossy, non-partisan political journal
In September 1996, in a secret ceremony,
Kennedy married Carolyn Bessette, a public relations executive for Calvin
Klein. She and her sister, Lauren G. Bessette, died with him in the plane
crash July 16, 1999.
What Kennedy's unfortunate accident is
all about is poor judgment and ego. Nothing more, nothing less.
Misjudgment #1. Kennedy reportedly
had just that day had a cast removed from a broken foot. He was observed
prior to departure by another pilot as "hobbling." Complete medical fitness
is essential especially if you are to undertake a flight at the extreme
edge of your experience level. Otherwise, don't go.
Misjudgment #2. The stress and
tension of business problems at George were no doubt very much on Kennedy's
mind. If you have other things on your mind, you shouldn't go.
Misjudgment #3. The pressure to
go. A wedding to attend the next day. This is classic "get home itis" coupled
with the ego drive to arrive in your own plane. Usually this happens in
combination with a "weather decision." This was the classic example of
"compounding" motivations pushing someone into the wrong decision. The
weather wasn't bad but it was borderline instrument conditions as there
was extreme haze.
Misjudgment #4. For someone so
inexperienced without any instrument rating, without much night experience,
a night flight over water under extreme haze is an instrument flight and
is a challenge for any pilot.
Misjudgement #5. Kennedy didn't
file a flight plan which is a pretty good indication of the level of the
rigor and professionalism of the training he received. It should have been
drilled into him a thousand times over. Every responsible pilot always
files a flight plan. Period. No one came looking for five hours even though
it probably wouldn't have made a difference in this case. It would have
made a difference perhaps in a controlled ditching because of engine failure.
Kennedy as pilot-in-command had an absolute responsibility to his passengers
to file a flight plan. It was reckless not to do so in that he was flying
a single engine plane at night over water with passengers. No one in Bridgeport
Flight Service is to blame for anything. The responsibility for a flight
plan rested on Kennedy alone.
Misjudgment #6. The craft reportedly
carried no life jackets. If this is true, it is a further indication of
a lax approach to airmanship. This was a wealthy man who bought an expensive
plane yet didn't provide for lifejackets and an inflatable raft not only
for himself but for his passengers even though he flew over water regularly
in a single engine plane. This is just plain foolish.
Misjudgment #7. He reportedly made
no radio calls or contact with New York Center to request radar flight
following as every VFR (visual flight rules) flight can do. In fact, all
air traffic control centers appreciate this as then the traffic is identified
and known to them and they can alert instrument flights as to the position,
direction and intentions of the VFR flight. If he had filed a flight plan
and requested radar flight following he would have been tracked and any
rescue; if there was any point to a rescue, would have been started a lot
earlier. Moreover any professional pilot who files a flight plan also files
position reports from time to time if he is not under control because he
knows that would help in any search if something went wrong.
Misjudgment #8. Kennedy was very
new to this aircraft and he should only have been flying it in good weather
in daytime conditions until his experience was well established. He learned
to fly on a Cessna 182 high wing. With a low wing aircraft you tend to
lose the lights below you for reference. Looking straight forward into
a black void at night in total haze, you lose the horizon and unless you
are instrument rated and even if you think you can understand an artificial
horizon, the reality is that unless you have had the requisite training
to learn to "trust" your instruments and not your body's responses to gravity,
you will very likely lose orientation and enter a spin, exactly as apparently
happened to Kennedy.
Misjudgment #9. Ego. I'm going
to do it despite the weather conditions, despite my foot, despite the new
plane I'm not really familiar with.... Ego is the pilot's worst enemy...and
it caught up with John Kennedy and his airplane. |
