Did a broken ankle from a hang gliding accident ultimately result in John F.
Kennedy Jr.'s tragic death in a plane crash? Here's what really happened before the accident.
John F. Kennedy Jr. spent his life in the pages of magazines. But when Kennedy got into the game
himself with George magazine in 1995, it wasn't as a model or a subject, but as an editor. George was
a glossy magazine dedicated to marrying political and celebrity coverage. Kennedy suggested in the
inaugural issue that George was part of a shift in the way politicians spoke to voters. Some critics,
including a particularly acidic reviewer in Spy magazine, suggested the whole enterprise was
designed to make Kennedy look smart and shut up those members of the press who looked down on him.
According to anonymous staffers interviewed by Spy, morale was
initially high and Kennedy was well-thought of by his team. When it finally debuted,
George reached a circulation number north of 400,000. But its early success wasn't
maintained. Critics pounced, sharing rumors of incompetence and tensions behind the scene.
"Ultimately this magazine is going to stand or fall on whether or not it's a good magazine."
According to Edward Klein's 2003 book "The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First
Family for 150 Years," George was projected to lose $10 million in 1999. Determined to keep it
afloat, Kennedy sought to move the magazine to a new publisher, but died before those
plans came to fruition. The magazine ultimately folded in 2001, 18 months after Kennedy's death.
Kennedy had several high-profile relationships before settling down, with rumored partners
including Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker. But in September 1996, Kennedy married fashion
publicist Carolyn Bessette, whom he had been involved with for some time. The photogenic
couple were a strong draw for the media. Yet despite her background in publicity, Bessette
came into her marriage unprepared for the degree of scrutiny the Kennedy family was subject to.
According to Edward Klein's "The Kennedy Curse," press intrusion into the marriage
began almost the moment they came back from their honeymoon. His reaction to the press,
however, was very different from Bessette's; Klein suggests that Kennedy loved the attention,
while Bessette increasingly sought ways to run from it. Former assistant to Jackie Kennedy Kathy
McKeon claimed in her book "Jackie's Girl" that Bessette wanted to lash out at the paparazzi.
In their final months, Kennedy's magazine George was purportedly
exacerbating tensions between the couple. Bessette resented the demands the magazine
put on her husband's time. The hectic and heavily scrutinized nature of their
lives also put her off having children — another point of conflict with Kennedy.
Tensions were mounting in the final months of Kennedy and Carolyn's lives. Edward Klein painted
a grim picture in "The Kennedy Curse." Citing an anonymous friend, Klein wrote that Kennedy
and Bessette were barely on speaking terms, and that Kennedy was talking divorce just two days
before his plane crash. Bessette was alleged to be terrified at the thought of losing Kennedy,
having been through divorce as a child, but was also controlling and antagonistic toward
anyone else who commanded her husband's attention, even his sister. Other nameless
sources suggested that Bessette used cocaine and got physically violent with Kennedy.
But this portrait of the couple's married life in their last days has been disputed by other
friends, some of whom were willing to actually go on the record. Ariel Paredas, the granddaughter
of an assistant to Jackie Kennedy, conceded to People that Kennedy and Bessette often argued,
but maintained that they were a loving couple. John Perry Barlow, a friend of Kennedy's,
also disputed the unflattering media portrayal of Bessette, while another anonymous friend
insisted that any tensions between the pair at the time of their deaths would have passed over.
The death of John F. Kennedy Jr. came on the heels of a series of misfortunes for the family,
leading to a rift among the Kennedys. JFK Jr. had used his editorial in George magazine to
denounce the behavior of his cousins, Michael Kennedy and U.S. Representative Joseph Kennedy,
after Joseph tried to have a previous marriage annulled and
Michael was caught having an inappropriate relationship with his underage babysitter.
Things seemed to only be patched up after Michael's untimely death
in a skiing accident on New Year's Eve 1997. John
Jr. attended and participated in the service and was seen embracing Joseph.
The Kennedys are sometimes referred to as American royalty,
but John F. Kennedy's cousin and best friend Tony was literally royalty. The
son of Kennedy's aunt Princess Lee Radziwill, Anthony Radziwill made his living in media,
working his way from an associate sports producer with NBC in 1988 to an Emmy award-winning news
producer with ABC by 1990, with his work well-regarded by journalists like Diane
Sawyer. He and Kennedy were each other's best men at their respective weddings.
But in 1994, the same year he married his wife Carole,
Radziwill was diagnosed with testicular cancer. By 1999, the 40-year-old Radziwill,
his wife, and his cousin Kennedy knew that he wasn't going to make it.
So sure was Radziwill's impending death that Kennedy was working on a eulogy for
him right before his own death. Kennedy's wife, Carolyn Bessette,
was also close to the Radziwills and did her best to see to their needs. On August 10,
1999, less than a month after Kennedy's tragic plane crash, Anthony Radziwill died.
Besides his name and good looks, Kennedy Jr.'s public persona was
defined by his love of adventure. He liked to bike, rollerblade, scuba dive, kayak,
drive a powered parachute, glide, and fly. Friends and instructors remembered him as
loving the freedom of such endeavors while still taking care in pursuing them. But an
accident from one of his adventures has become tied in with theories about his tragic death.
Six weeks prior to his last flight, Kennedy was hang gliding when he broke his ankle.
He was put in a cast and had to get around on crutches. He still wasn't fully healed when he
had his cast removed on July 15, 1999. But Kennedy was delighted. He told his
friends that he was most happy because having the cast off meant he could fly
planes on his own. It was an enthusiasm not shared by his friends or doctors,
who all counseled Kennedy to wait until he was more fully healed.
Some of that worry came from Kennedy's inexperience as a pilot. According to the podcast
"Fatal Voyage: The Death of JFK Jr.," while he was licensed to fly by 1999, he was still unskilled in
monitoring instruments. On top of that, he would need to foot-operate his plane's pedals. It's been
speculated that Kennedy's injury and inexperience both contributed to his fatal plane crash,
though a fellow pilot disputed that theory based on Kennedy's movement before the flight.
At the time of his last flight, John F. Kennedy Jr. was a licensed
private pilot. But he had only held that license since April the previous year,
and his credentials were not complete in July 1999. He was not yet qualified to fly solely by
instruments. According to historian John Hankey on the "Fatal Voyage" podcast, Kennedy was in the
process of getting an instrument rating before his death, having passed the relevant exams.
His flight instructor, Lloyd Howard, said,
"I think it gave him freedom.
Freedom from press, freedom from pictures, freedom from people wanting autographs.
But air crash investigator Richard Bender told "Fatal Voyage" that Kennedy still wasn't solid
enough on the instruments to always know which one to look at. And his 37 logged flight hours
in his private plane weren't enough to qualify for personal liability insurance, a fact that,
according to Edward Klein's "The Kennedy Curse," Kennedy kept even from his own wife.
Kennedy wasn't intimidated by his limited experience. Editor Barry Levine told "Fatal
Voyage" that flying was Kennedy's great passion and release from cares. He got into flying every
weekend with his dog Friday, and he enjoyed flying his planes without a co-pilot. Kennedy
was quick to tell friends after getting the ankle cast off on July 15 that he could now fly solo;
a delay in getting the cast off might have required that he enlisted a co-pilot for
the trip up to Martha's Vineyard. Some also think that Kennedy, underqualified in reading
instruments, wasn't capable of landing his plane safely when it ran into haze.
The Kennedy name is inextricably linked to politics in American life,
but John F. Kennedy Jr. did not go into the family business other than through the magazine George.
In the final months of his life, though, the political itch seemed to have reached him.
According to biographer Steven M. Gillon, though Kennedy was keen to find his own identity and felt
no compunction to become a politician, he still began exploring a run for the U.S. Senate in March
1999. New York was about to have an open seat. But the precarious state of George magazine, the
poor health of his cousin Anthony Radziwill, and tensions within the family all discouraged him.
And though his father had served in the Senate, Kennedy was not attracted to the legislative
branch, said Gillon. He was interested in perhaps running for New York governor down the road.
"We all know that politics is a very tough profession these days,
but I think a very rewarding one."
And after that, perhaps 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Gillon has claimed that Kennedy,
upon seeing George H. W. Bush's inauguration with an unnamed friend, talked about going
"home," as in the White House, where Kennedy had grown up as a child. If a presidential
run wasn't immediately in the cards, it might have factored into Kennedy's long-term planning.
While John F. Kennedy Jr. was regularly in the spotlight, his older sister Caroline was
a much quieter presence in American life. Never one to court the press or attract them in the
way her other family members did, Caroline worked with the American Ballet Theater and
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And though she would later become a U.S. ambassador,
she mostly avoided politics in her younger years. Her social circle included the
Clintons and Hollywood stars, and she was, for a time, close to her brother.
Edward Klein speculated in "The Kennedy Curse" that John Jr. took after the Bouvier family
more in looks but the Kennedys in temperament, outgoing and daring, while the reverse was true
with Caroline. As they entered adulthood, tension started to develop between these
siblings of such different attitudes. Caroline reportedly didn't think much of George magazine,
which John Jr. took personally. And neither of them liked the other's spouse. According
to Steven M. Gillon's biography "America's Reluctant Prince," Caroline's husband,
Ed Schlossberg, inserted himself into Kennedy family decisions in a way that irked John
Jr. And Caroline allegedly got off on the wrong foot with John Jr.'s wife, Carolyn,
on their wedding day. In their final months, John Jr. and Bessette barely spoke with Caroline.
Such family tension was hard, and John Jr. and Caroline had tentatively begun
to mend fences. But both counted on having more time to do so.
On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. took to the air to attend the wedding
of his cousin Rory. There was a question in the days immediately before the flight
whether John Jr.'s wife Carolyn would attend as well. Husband and wife were
alleged not to be on speaking terms, and according to Edward Klein's "The Kennedy
Curse," Carolyn was also reluctant to go anywhere near John Jr.'s flying hobby.
Klein wrote that Carolyn's sister Lauren persuaded her sister to join her husband at the wedding and
joined the flight party herself. The plan was for Lauren to get dropped off at Martha's Vineyard.
John Jr. and Carolyn would then fly to Hyannis Port, to the Kennedy compound, for the wedding.
The flight was late in getting off the ground, and it was contrary to other flights out of New Jersey
that night, which were called off on account of poor visibility. John Jr.'s plane never arrived
in Martha's Vineyard; tragically, it crashed into the sea, killing all three on board. The accident
was later ruled to be due to pilot error, leading to an outpouring of grief from around the globe.
"I want to express our family's support and offer our prayers and those of all Americans."