Posted on 01/07/2019 5:25:36 PM PST by lowbridge
“The Last Days of JFK Jr.,” a two-hour special promising new details and new interviews under the ABC News banner, aired Thursday night. Not only did the program soft-pedal Kennedy’s complete and utter fault for the crash but it got crucial details wrong — claiming that the FAA said flying conditions that night were “excellent” (according to the National Transportation Safety Board review of the crash, they were extremely poor, and JFK Jr. would have known it), and that his flight instructor was unavailable that night to fly with him. In fact, the NTSB report said one of Kennedy’s instructors did offer to fly with him, but Kennedy said no, that “he wanted to do it alone.”
-snip
Here’s what ABC didn’t report: The NTSB blamed JFK Jr. for the crash. He had less than an hour logged flying at night alone. Out of 310 hours logged, Kennedy had only 72 with a flight instructor, which, as The New York Times reported in July 2000, was considered “an unusually low number” by experts. The Times also reported that one pilot said that as he flew over Martha’s Vineyard that night, he thought the whole island had suffered a power outage, and that haze and visibility that night was as low as four miles. The Guardian reported that Kennedy’s certificate “forbade him to fly with visibility less than five miles.”
In the dark, with no horizon, Kennedy was unable to tell the sea from the land from the sky. He became confused: What the pilot may feel the plane is doing is actually different than what the instruments say, and he likely wound up in what’s called the graveyard spiral, plummeting 79 feet per second toward the ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It's a shame he died so young, but I believe each successive generation of that Kennedy clan has gotten progressively dumber than the one before it.
Good comment. He followed his “Reckless Youth” Dad to his grave.
I followed that incident as close as I could. I read several eyewitness acccounts right after the crash that there was a fourth passenger, a male, spotted in the right seat at takeoff.
Oops, I forgot that one.
Never get in a motorized vehicle with a Kennedy.
The odds are god that you’ll die.
If you’re lucky you might just end up paralyzed.
They did the story on Jr’s flight and blamed him.
Wasn’t he also on pain killers and, with a foot in a cast?
Coke has a habit of causing the user of irrational. behavior. Now I am not privy to whether or not anyone on that plane had ingested any illegal substances [ on that specific time period]. but there are eyewitness accounts of certain activities that were not condoned by many. He’s dead and there is no reason to further tarnish his name
Nothing to McCain
I was a flight instructor at the st lucie international airport at that time.
While not directly involved with his primary pilots certification, i did know him well, as his training was primarily in vero beach airport, 11 miles north.
Bluntly put, he was a poor pilot who didn’t take correction and guidance well
Few wanted to fly with him.
I was appalled when he bought an aircraft beyond what I considered his ability to control, and even more so when he took off in marginal VFR conditions in the evening and then flew at night - over water with no visible horizon while NOT IFR certified and with helpless passengers.
And people; that is how they all died...
Fact.
Yeah, and how much of taxpayer’s money was spent recovery his sorry ass of a body?
Come on joe, those aren’t great credentials.
Fair, not great
Wow, thank you for the personal insight. I’m friends with an older, retired jet pilot who flies private jets now. He didn’t know jr but I guess you pilots study the accidents pretty closely. His take on the accident is close to yours, without the personal knowledge.
Thug behavior comes naturally to the Kennedys when it concerns money and wills. On the way to the cemetery, Jackie got Ted into Christina Onassis's limo so he could shake her down for Jackie's widow settlement.
En route to the cemetery in Scorpios, Ted Kennedy started talking to Christina about Jackie's compensation. Christina stopped the car and left in a rage.
That is fatal arrogance. His passengers died because of it and their own lack of discrimination.
How ‘bout General Yaeger ?
I flew right by that area the day before. When I got a weather brief all seemed well for a visual flight. And it was on the ground, but after about a thousand feet or so Above ground level the visibility was so poor due to haze that I would have turned around if I hadn’t been instrument rated.
It was covered on “Why Planes Crash” season 2 episode 4.
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