JFK Jr’s body was almost lost at sea after he died in a horror plane crash as crews almost gave up the search for him on the ocean floor, the rescue team’s leader revealed.
The son of the slain president went missing on the night of July 16, 1999, when a small plane he was piloting crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren were all killed in the tragic crash, sparking one of the largest maritime rescue missions for private citizens in US history.
The search failed to show any sign of the three for four days, and crews were preparing to wind down the operation and admit they may be gone forever, Coast Guard Capt W Russell ‘Russ’ Webster said.
Webster, who was leading the rescue mission, told the New York Post that teams were discussing ending the search when high-tech sonar scanners picked up a signal in the depths.
He said Kennedy’s body was discovered 116 feet below the surface on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 10 feet from the wreckage around seven miles from the coastline.
Inside the wreckage lay the Bessette sisters’ bodies still strapped into their seats.
Webster said Kennedy’s body was likely found at the last moment, as if more time had passed he would have been ‘swept away’ and possibly never found.
JFK Jr’s body was almost lost at sea after he and his wife Carolyn Bessette (together) died in a horror plane crash as crews almost gave up the search on the ocean floor, the rescue team’s leader revealed
Kennedy was piloting a small aircraft with his wife and sister-in-law when he crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and into the Atlantic Ocean
‘They might have never found him had another day gone by,’ Webster’s wife, historian Theresa Mitchell Webster, added.
The couple spoke of the efforts to retrieve Kennedy’s body ahead of the release of their book, ‘The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr. and the Race Against the Atlantic,’ detailing their involvement.
They said that divers used an array of technology to scan the ocean floor for the victims, but said it took an additional day to retrieve the remains even after they were located.
Theresa said Carolyn and Lauren’s bodies were so mangled by the wreckage that they were ‘not facially recognizable,’ and they were only identified through their different hair colors.
Russell explained that locating the Kennedy crash site was made harder by the ‘visual flight’ rules that he was operating under, meaning the Federal Aviation Administration was not tracking his plane during his final voyage.
Kennedy was navigating by geographic reference points and had not finished his instrument training to become a certified pilot, but a storm blew over Martha’s Vineyard before his last flight.
Coast Guard Capt. W. Russell ‘Russ’ Webster, pictured coordinating the rescue efforts in July 1999, said his teams found Kennedy’s remains shortly before they would have been ‘swept away’ and lost at sea
Kennedy had not completed his pilot certification before the fateful final flight that killed him, his wife Carolyn Bessette (together) and her sister Lauren
The search for Kennedy and the Bessette sisters was one of the largest maritime rescue operations for a private citizen in US history
The political scion’s inexperience with flight instruments may have doomed him, Russell said, recalling that one of Kennedy’s instructors warned him before the flight that he was ‘not ready’ to fly. He likely lost his perspective on the horizon before he crash landed at high speed into the ocean.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation found the plane fell at 4,700 feet per minute, and Russell said the force of the impact would have been devastating.
‘Water is only marginally less than cement at that speed and coming from that altitude,’ he told the New York Post.
