JFK Jr.’s haunting final words to his flight instructor come to light

JFK Jr and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, died in a tragic plane crash. JFK was the one piloting the aircraft, with him accompanied by Bessette and her sister, Lauren, as they boarded a flight on his plane towards Martha’s Vineyard. The day of the flight, a conversation between JFK Jr and his flight instructor was revealed, shedding light on their last exchange.

The news was reported by PEOPLE, citing the National Transportation Safety Board’s report from the crash. In it, JFK Jr. told his instructor Bob Merena that “he wanted to do it alone.”

The group boarded the flight on July 16, 1999, meeting in an airport in New Jersey with a flight path that meant to have them land in Martha’s Vineyard to drop off Lauren, and then on to Hyannis Port, where JFK Jr and Bessette were attending the wedding of Rory Kennedy.

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In the book “JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography,” experts share that the Bessette sisters might not have known that they were in trouble. 

“It was 17 seconds from the time they began to divert from their flight path to the time they impacted the ocean,” said Jeff Guzzetti, one of the people who investigated the crash. “They might’ve felt a little g-force pushing them down in their seats. You would’ve heard the rush of air over the fuselage accelerate or get louder during the final fatal plunge. Perhaps feel yourself accelerating a little bit. And then they hit the surface of the water, and it’s over.”

He believed that the pilot would’ve had a different experience. “I would expect that the pilot would be very confused and perhaps a little frightened because the instruments may not have been matching up with how he was feeling,” he said.

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The statement from the Bessette family

Following the death of JFK Jr and the Bessette sisters, the Bessette family shared a statement. “Each of these three young people, Lauren Bessette, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy Jr., was the embodiment of love, accomplishment, and passion for life,” reads the statement, shared in 1999. 

“John and Carolyn were true soul mates, and we hope to honor them in death in the simple manner in which they chose to live their lives. We take solace in the thought that together they will comfort Lauren for eternity.”

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