Original subtitles

King: Do you ever fear your own health?

My own health?

Yeah, there are nuts in this country.

No.

The Kennedys must think about it.

How could they not think about?

It's not something that it's sort of, like, walking around

wondering if you're going to be struck by lightning.

It's kind of -- it's just not something

that you really keep in the forefront of your mind much.

But it might affect decision-making, right,

going into politics, right?

Right, but it doesn't.

♪♪

♪♪

Hey, everyone. Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

To many Americans, he's simply known as John-John,

a nickname created by the press

and one that Jackie Kennedy once admitted he hated.

He was the heir to his father's legacy.

However, John F. Kennedy Jr.

strove to be his own man, aware of the expectations

but set on creating a life of his own making,

but that life was tragically cut short at 38 years old.

Tonight, an investigation into his mysterious plane crash.

What really happened to JFK Jr.?

Man: The U. S. Coast Guard is conducting a search

off of the coast of New York,

extending now up to Martha's Vineyard for a private aircraft

that, apparently, has now gone overdue.

The Coast Guard is saying to CNN that onboard that plane

was believed to be John F. Kennedy Jr.

Cuomo: The situation at the beginning

was as devastating as it was simple.

What we knew was the plane was gone.

They couldn't find it.

It wasn't on radar anymore.

The information that we had gotten

was that John F. Kennedy Jr.. his wife,

and her sister were on a flight from Caldwell, New Jersey,

stopping at Martha's Vineyard,

then eventually going to Cape Cod.

We really didn't have a good sense

of what had happened or where they were.

Amanpour: I remember when the news first trickled in

about John's first disappearance.

The international desk, as a courtesy, I think,

because they knew we were friends, called me,

and they said, "Have you seen the news?"

and, "We just want to keep you abreast of what little we know."

Bailey: There was a missing-airplane alert,

and then in my mind it clicked,

"That's JFK Jr.'s Piper Saratoga."

I went out to the living room of my friend Patricia's house,

and she said "John Kennedy Jr.'s plane is missing,"

and I said, "What does that mean?"

And she said, "They don't know."

And we all sort of had theories like maybe they ran out of gas

and landed on an island somewhere.

Amanpour: Maybe he'd got lost.

Maybe he'd stopped somewhere with his wife and sister-in-law.

Maybe he was going to come back.

Berman: RoseMarie, John's assistant,

I think she said to me something like,

"you know what, I bet you the weather was bad,

and they landed, and they're at,

like, at a Holiday Inn somewhere,

and he's going to be so embarrassed when he wakes up,

and he sees, you know, what's going on in the news."

I just kept thinking he's going to kill me

if this gets out because I know he's going to be fine,

and they're going to kill me. They're going to be like,

"How did you let this get so out of control?"

We can confirm that the FAA

cleared the airplane for takeoff,

and the airplane did take off at 8:38 P.M.

on Friday, July 16th.

That plane left our airspace without any problem.

What happened after that remains a mystery.

The flying community here at this airport

hope for the best but fear the worst.

Did the plane go down in water?

Were they going to find the wreckage?

Had they done a crash-landing?

Had they crash-landed into the sea,

and they'd swum off into --

these were all the sorts of questions.

Man: A search is actively under way off the coast of Long Island

extending all the way up to Martha's Vineyard.

That Saturday was the third anniversary

of the TWA 800 accident.

I had planned to go up to Long Island.

I was told the Coast Guard had initiated a search and rescue.

We were woken up this morning to a call

that a plane had been overdue, apparently JFK Jr.'s airplane.

Hall: We hoped that their job would be successful in terms of rescue

so that we would not have to do our job,

which would be, obviously, a full investigation.

Woman: Waiting and watching, Frank.

There's not a lot of news coming out of the family compound.

We were the first people on the air with this mystery of,

where is John Jr.?

Cuomo: There are just cameras trained on the water off the vineyard.

There's shots of the shore, trying to get information.

In terms of a news story in my life,

it rarely got bigger than what was starting to unfold.

It was extraordinary because of the nature of the story,

the person involved, and the history of the Kennedy family.

Cuomo: There was only one John Kennedy Jr.

He meant something.

He represented something.

So the idea of losing him was so wrong

on so many different levels for generations of Americans.

[ Projector whirring ]

Lonnstrom: Yeah, he was born November 25, 1960.

His father had just been elected president

of the United States a few weeks before that.

Well, now my wife and I prepare for a new administration

and for a new baby.

Thank you.

Tuchman: John F. Kennedy, when he was President of the United States,

had this amazingly beautiful family,

whether you liked him politically or not.

What's your earliest memory?

We had a dog who was named Pushinka.

We trained it to slide down this slide

that we had in the back of the White House.

But probably memories of your father are not great?

They're great, but they're not plentiful.

Cuomo: From a young age, John was fascinated with aviation.

You could see it in so many of the photos

and films that had been taken.

Right away, there are photographs of young JFK Jr.

in Air Force One, holding airplanes,

on the president's helicopter in the pilot seat.

JFK Jr. obviously loved airplanes,

loved playing with airplanes, loved being in airplanes.

Lonnstrom: There's a picture of him being held back by his mother

because he wanted to run

because his father was gonna take off without him,

and he thought that was awful.

Pierre Salinger, the presidential press secretary,

told me of the famous images

of John running to greet his father.

He would run right past his father to that helicopter,

because that's what he really wanted

was a ride on that chopper.

One could look at it as a foreshadowing

but an inevitability, really.

He had to get up into the skies,

and he knew this before he could even speak.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Thomas: There's nothing remarkable about a photograph

of a little kid holding an airplane,

but, of course, in retrospect, given how he died,

there is a kind of sadness to those photographs.

I wouldn't say they're so much ominous

as kind of they make you shake your head

knowing where fate would take that little boy.

Andersen: Jackie wanted them to have a normal life,

as normal as humanly possible.

Of course, all of that ended on November 22, 1963,

with the assassination of the president.

♪♪

Thomas: When President Kennedy was killed in 1963,

the country, the world was riveted by the funeral,

and the image of young John F. Kennedy Jr.

saluting his father's coffin is the image that stuck forever.

That famous picture that you must've seen 7 zillion times,

the little boy, do you remember that?

I think that what happens is that you see an image

so many times that you begin to believe,

remember the image, but I'm not sure I really do.

Cuomo: I remember the image well because it became a metaphor,

and from that point in his life,

John became more than a boy, more than a man.

He became a moment.

He became a message.

He became a promise of potential.

At this hour, here is what we know.

There was no distress call, and there was no evidence

that there had been any sort of plane crash.

Tuchman: People were stunned because everyone felt

like they grew up with John F. Kennedy Jr.

Kagan: At this hour, here is what we know.

Dozens of police officers and investigators

have resumed their search on land, air.

and water for John F. Kennedy Jr.,

his wife and sister-in-law.

Camerota: It was a mystery.

There was no distress call, and there was no evidence

that there had been any sort of plane crash.

There was no wreckage.

I mean, he had vanished.

Andersen: What hampered the search tremendously

was that John never bothered to file a flight plan.

Now, you don't have to file a flight plan,

but given the circumstances,

it would've obviously been the wise thing to do.

Larrabee: The initial search was over a huge area,

and because we didn't have a flight plan,

they had to go back and look at all that radar data,

and so it took a while to do that.

We worked at that point with the FAA.

They were able to determine the flight path of the airplane

and determine that it was likely going to be someplace

south of Martha's Vineyard,

and we began to sort of focus, narrow down,

if you will, the search area.

I was just sitting by a television.

I mean, as I said, every day, you know, I was, you know,

waiting, hoping for the best.

Tuchman: People were stunned, because everyone

felt like they grew up with John F. Kennedy Jr.

Andersen: After the assassination, Jackie was devastated,

and she decided in 1964

that she had to move back to New York City,

where she basically grew up.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Thomas: There's no way that John F. Kennedy Jr.

could have a normal childhood, but his mother tried.

My thanks to all of you, and now it's onto Chicago,

and let's win there.

Thomas: When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968,

she said, "If they're killing Kennedys,

my children are the obvious target."

Andersen: She married the notorious shipping magnate,

Aristotle Onassis, and instantly the world turned on Jackie.

They didn't think this was a fitting replacement

for the martyred president, but she didn't care,

because she said, "Look, he's got a 75-man security force

that can protect my children."

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Thomas: She wanted to make them safe,

and Aristotle Onassis had an island in Greece

that was like a fortress.

It was a safe place.

Tuchman: People felt like John F. Kennedy Jr.

was their little boy,

and they watched him become a successful and nice young man.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

Andersen: When it came time to choose a college,

of course, the obvious assumption was that John

would be going to Harvard like the rest of the Kennedy men,

but John was smart enough to know

that the pressure would be unbearable for him,

so he decided instead to go to Brown University.

It's funny, you know, that he actually took a class at Brown

on his father's administration and got a "B"-plus.

[ Chuckles ]

Amanpour: I met John first at University.

He was at Brown University.

I was at the University of Rhode Island.

We were in Rhode Island,

and we knew each other through mutual friends

and struck up a really good friendship,

and I spent two of my years at university

sharing a house with him.

You know, he was an incredible, charismatic guy.

He was obviously the hot guy, the leader on campus.

Everybody wanted a bit of him.

Probably to this day probably nobody really believes

that John Kennedy cleaned his own toilets.

He did. I'm here to tell you,

all the toilets in the house, when it was his turn.

The 40th national convention of the Democratic Party

of the United States will come to order.

1988 was the perceived coming-out moment

in politics for John Kennedy Jr.

He appears at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta

to introduce his Uncle Teddy.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.

Andersen: Somebody said that, you know, the air pressure

in the entire convention hall, you know,went down dramatically

just from the intake of gasps when he took the podium

because here was this incredibly good-looking guy

that we hadn't seen that much of while he was at Brown

and speaking, really, for the first time in his adult voice.

Thank you very much.

Tuchman: I distinctly remember saying,

"I'm looking forward to seeing Michael Dukakis,

but I'm more looking forward

to seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. make his speech.

Over a quarter century ago,

my father stood before you to accept the nomination

for the presidency of the United States.

It made people wonder if this was going to be

the first of many speeches that would propel him one day

to also running for the president of the United States.

So many of you came into public service because of him.

In a very real sense, because of you, he is with us still.

And from that point on John the man was a superstar.

Cuomo: Sexiest man, most beautiful man, most desired man,

and that's just what I

JFK Jr. was photographed all the time

coming in and out of bars with beautiful women.

When you think of all the girls that he went out with,

it's kind of remarkable there aren't more memoirs

of "my night with John," but there weren't,

and I think that's because he treated women well.

Andersen: He was dating people like Madonna.

He also dated Sarah Jessica Parker.

His real relationship, the important relationship

began in 1988 with Daryl Hannah.

It was the longest-lasting of his life.

It lasted six years on and off.

Woman: John Kennedy Jr. had arrived with his girlfriend,

actress Daryl Hannah.

The couple, apparently shaken by the onslaught,

ran into the church.

In 1989, he graduates from law school.

Pass the bar. [ Laughter ]

He finally had to take the bar exam,

and he flunked it once and then twice.

"The Hunk Flunks."

These were the headlines. He was mortified.

No, it's absolutely true. Yeah, I didn't pass the bar.

I'm obviously very disappointed but...

Cuomo: That wound up being one of the biggest Albatrosses

around his neck.

Because John was dumb? No.

John had a learning disability.

John would have been allowed

to have the questions read to him,

as many do, and he wouldn't do that

because he thought people would think he was cheating.

[ Applause ]

Slow news day, I guess, huh?

And when he finally, you know, squeaked by the third time,

you know, he didn't brag about it then either.

He was excellent at handling the press

with this kind of easy charm.

So is it true that you passed the bar?

Apparently it's true.

I got the official word not long ago, so it's true.

How do you feel about it?

I'm very pleased.

Woman: I'm sorry. Rob, where are you?

[ Chuckles ]

You know, it tastes pretty sweet at the moment.

Cuomo: The biggest celebrity today would get crushed

like a bug under the amount of pressure

that that man dealt with every day,

and you'd never know it by looking at him.

John was in the tabloids a lot. He knew to expect that.

He was a Kennedy. But then John met Carolyn.

John didn't tell his family until like six months later.

Terenzio: I think Carolyn felt that once it was out, she said,

"It wasn't my treasure anymore.

It wasn't mine anymore."

Man: We are closely following the search-and-rescue efforts

underway to locate John F. Kennedy Jr.,

whose plane has gone missing.

John F. Kennedy, of course, not alone on that airplane.

His wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,

was with him, as well. She, a doctor's daughter,

having been raised in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She was voted the ultimate beautiful person

by her classmates.

Andersen: The fall of 1993, John walked into the Calvin Klein store

in New York looking for a suit

and met a young personal buyer there named Carolyn Bessette,

this gorgeous blonde with pale-blue eyes,

and, you know, he ended up buying three suits

and a bunch of shirts and ties

and getting her phone number in the process.

Soon she was a big part of his life.

When I met Carolyn, she was the head of PR at Calvin Klein.

She was very fashionable, very effortlessly chic,

clever, charming, funny, intelligent woman.

Cuomo: What made her special was her spirit.

She did not need to be John Kennedy's girlfriend,

and he was acutely aware of that,

and that made him want her even more.

Radziwill: She always thought that the relationships that

you waited patiently for were the only ones worth having.

Terenzio: If she was your friend, she was your best friend,

and she didn't come across that way, unfortunately,

but, boy, did people miss out who didn't get to know her.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Berman: Yeah, I think the public perception of Carolyn

was the opposite of what she was.

You know, she didn't agree to do any interviews,

so no one heard her voice, so you wouldn't know --

you didn't really get a sense of who she was

except for what she looked like.

Andersen: We saw pictures of Carolyn, you know, frowning

or running away from cameras.

I don't think most people understood

the pressures that were on her.

It was quite powerful to see them together.

Their chemistry was really palpable.

Cuomo: They were both very passionate people.

That means you're going to have conflict.

You're going to be ups. You're going to have downs.

Andersen: There was the famous squabble in the park

in which they are shouting at each other

and fighting over the dog, and it's really quite heated.

Terenzio: It was ridiculous.

It was over and done with in, you know, an hour,

and they were fine, but it was all caught on video.

Bradley: We all felt bad for them because

who hasn't had a blow-out fight with a partner?

But you don't have it and have the whole world know about it.

Radziwill: She called me one day and she said,

"You have to come down right away."

She told me that they had gotten engaged.

She told me then not to tell anyone

because they just wanted it to be quiet for a while,

and I don't think John -- John didn't tell his family

until like six months later.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Terenzio: I think Carolyn felt that once it was out,

it wasn't, you know, like she said,

"It wasn't my treasure anymore. It wasn't mine anymore."

Radziwill: They got married in September of 1996.

We arrived on Cumberland Island,

and there was not a single reporter,

photographer, and not a single soul knew

except for the 40 of us who were invited.

It was quite spectacular.

Terenzio: We all thought that once John was married,

the paparazzi situation would subside.

It was the complete opposite.

One of the most eligible bachelors in the U.S.

is eligible no more.

Terenzio: People were a little pissed off that he got married.

He was supposed to be the sexiest man alive

and the most eligible bachelor for the rest of his life.

It's a sad day if it's true for all the women out there.

It's going to end.

They'll get divorced.

I wonder, who proposed?

She was vilified for taking away the prince of Camelot.

Andersen: John felt he had to actually hold

kind of an impromptu press conference

on the steps of his condominium in SoHo

and, with her at his side,

explain to the press this was all new to her,

that he knew how to handle it because he had grown up with it,

but this was something the press had to take into account and

that they really had to back off and give her time to kind of

adjust to this new life as Mrs. John F. Kennedy Jr.

Of course, they didn't.

As a matter of fact, it only got worse.

Cuomo: In 1999, John was facing some tough challenges.

Bradley: Political consultants, money people,

it felt very logical to them, too.

Okay, John, now is the time.

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Piper Saratoga plane vanished

on a hazy Friday night in July.

From the time it was reported missing

early Saturday morning throughout the entire weekend,

a monstrous coast-guard search combed the Atlantic waters

looking for wreckage and looking for clues.

Did the plane go down?

Could they have survived?

At this point, no one knew.

All we knew is that we were hoping for a miracle.

King: The search continues for the missing plane

piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr.

and carrying his wife and her sister.

We'll get an update on the search.

Admiral, what specifically at this point are you looking for?

Larry, this evening we have coast-guard vessels, aircraft,

and they are searching about a 550-square-mile area,

and they are primarily looking for debris

and continue to look for any signs of survivors.

As time goes on, does it get futile

from a coast-guard standpoint?

You've dealt with many things like this.

Not at this point, Larry.

Amanpour: None of his friends spoke about him when he was alive

because there was this sort of unspoken understanding

that, yes, he was a public figure.

But you know what? When it came to friendship

and people who knew him, he expected confidentiality.

Christiane Amanpour, she's a close friend of John F. Kennedy.

Where did that friendship begin?

I think I responded to Larry King's request

to go on his program that night

because I didn't believe that John wouldn't be found.

I never have spoken or felt it appropriate

to speak about John in public before,

and I'm doing so tonight because sometimes,

and today is one of those cases,

a friend needs a little bit of help.

I remember talking about him

as if he was going to somehow reappear.

He still is officially alive, by the way.

If you're just joining us,

there has been no declaration of any kind.

Absolutely, and all of us are still praying for him

to come home safely.

I guess I wanted people to know, you know,

what a great guy he was, and I wanted to keep hope alive.

The last time my husband and I saw him,

he was going to fly to Toronto on a mission forGeorge.

-The same plane? -Same plane.

He was going to do a mission forGeorge,

♪♪

Ladies and gentlemen, meetGeorge.

Terenzio: The first idea that John and his business partner had

was to mass produce handmade kayaks,

and that was not a viable business option,

so they decided to doGeorge

-I thought you were a lawyer. -I was.

What happened?

Well, we decided, I mean, actually taking cue

from folks like yourself and you around the 1992 election,

that there was an opportunity here

to change the definition of the political magazine.

The response to the magazine has been enormously gratifying.

It was, I think, the biggest launch of a magazine,

the biggest first issue physically

that had ever happened.

I don't think I've seen as many of you in one place

since they announced the results of my first bar exam, so --

The idea forGeorge started with President Clinton.

He was the first President to do a late-night talk show,

and I think a light went off with John,

and he thought, "There's something here,"

and maybe they'll pay attention to politics a bit more

if we can make it sexy,

and soGeorge was that.

Cuomo: He liked that he surprised people by doing this,

he liked that it was a challenge,

he thought that it mattered,

he thought he was ahead of the curve,

and he was right on every basis.

I like not being in politics.

I like the proximity to it

that a magazine like this affords me.

Thrilled enough to someday want to run?

A public career, it's a lot to bite off,

and you better be ready for it, and,

you know, the old definition of politics

was that you bring it at the end of your life

when you really have something to sort of offer.

In 1999, John was facing some tough challenges.

His magazine was struggling.

New York's long-time senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

let it be known that he was going to retire.

Political consultants, money people,

it felt very logical to them.

"Okay, John, you have had your fun atGeorge.

Now is the time."

...where President Kennedy first made the decision

to send Americans to the moon.

So it was spring of 1999, and John was approached

by some friends influential in the Democratic Party,

and they wanted him to run for the U.S. Senate.

Another famous person surfaces as a possibility for that seat,

and that is Hillary Clinton.

Bradley: In March 1999, we held a press conference.

John was asked whether or not

he thought Hillary Clinton would run for Senate.

I'm sort of betting that she will.

I have a large bet with Rich.

I think she probably will.

Like 100 bucks or something, like, not a big deal for him.

I think any time you have some exciting personalities

and the prospect of a real face-off, it's great,

because people are engaged in the political process.

So John was well aware of what he would sacrifice

if and when he made the choice to go into politics.

Terenzio: He had a few conversations about it,

maybe one or two meetings about it, and he said,

"if Hillary Clinton is running,

I'm not going to run against her.

I'm not going to challenge Hillary Clinton," and he didn't.

Andersen: Most experts I spoke with said that there was no doubt

that he would, in a contest with Hillary, come out on top.

Imagine how different it would have been

if John F. Kennedy had run.

I mean, first of all, he would have ended

Hillary Clinton's political career, essentially,

would have conceivably go on

to make a presidential bid of his own.

Larrabee: We are in a search-and-rescue mode.

The full intent of the searchers

and all of the people behind the scenes

was to find three people alive.

They found a pill bottle -- had Carolyn Bessette's name on it.

We update you now on the search for John F. Kennedy Jr.,

his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,

and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette.

Larrabee: We are in a search-and-rescue mode.

The full intent of the searchers

and all of the people behind the scenes

was to find three people alive

floating on the surface of the water

or someplace in that area where we could rescue them.

It was absolutely one of those stories

where, every second, you hoped that the next moment

you were going to hear good news.

But then things began to wash up on shore.

Man: I'm told the Coast Guard is now saying debris

has been spotted off Martha's Vineyard.

I remember that feeling of, "I hope it's not theirs.

I hope it's not theirs."

They found one of the flight bags

from Lauren washed up on shore.

They actually found a wheel that washed up on shore.

They found a pill bottle --

had Carolyn Bessette's name on it.

And then it becomes, did they survive?

Could -- Did they jump out?

First, of course, all of John's friends believed

that he would turn up somewhere,

and I think everyone felt that way.

After all, he was known to his friends

as the master of disaster.

He had this penchant for taking risks

but always coming out of it in good shape.

Amanpour: You know, John was an adventurer.

He spent a lot of time in the wilderness

in his various campings and outward bounds and kayakings.

Andersen: Just shortly before his death, he asked officials

for permission to rappel down the face of Mount Rushmore.

Arnot: There is this thing called a type-"T" personality,

which is a thrill-seeking personality,

and it's been alleged this is what the Kennedy family has.

There's no question that John was fearless

and loved adventure.

Some of that adventure was also an attempt

to escape the surly bonds, in this case,

of the overwhelming and oppressing public attention.

Just to find somewhere to be alone

and to be able to think for himself.

Flying, to me, was a logical extension of that impulse,

right, adventure, speed, escape.

John started taking his flying lessons in the early 1980s.

Told a friend it was the most fun

he ever had with clothes on.

Andersen: It was the only way he could get away from everything,

get away from all the expectations

and the burdens and the prying eyes.

And he felt that it was the only place he could truly be free.

The biggest thing about flying for John

is he was out of the public eye.

Bradley: I remember, I took a flight with John,

a commercial flight with John.

It was a zoo.

He'd always take a window seat

so that nobody could, you know, tap him on the shoulder

or keep approaching him and asking him for autographs.

Arnot: The other part that he loved is he loved being accepted

by another professional class for who he was as a pilot

as opposed to who he was because of his family,

so when he was up there, whatever his call sign was,

it wasn't, "Hey, JFK Jr."

Andersen: Jackie had kind of a paradoxical attitude

toward John and his risk-taking.

She loved that spirit in him, that kind of daredevil quality.

There was one thing that Jackie did not want John to do,

and that was to learn to fly.

You have to remember the track record of the Kennedy family

when it comes to airplanes.

John Jr.'s Uncle Joe was killed, essentially,

in a plane crash during the war,

his Aunt Kathleen was killed in a plane crash,

and his step-brother, Alexander Onassis,

was killed in a plane crash.

Ethel Kennedy's parents were killed in one plane crash,

and her brother was killed in another plane crash.

Teddy Kennedy was almost killed in a plane crash

that killed his campaign manager and the pilot.

Jackie had this recurring premonition

that her son would die in a plane crash.

Now, I mean, she was adamant,

and so that's why he gave up flying, out of respect for her.

Andersen: Jackie said that if you bungle raising your children,

nothing else you do in life matters very much,

so she was, in every way possible,

a hands-on mother right up to the end.

At the time of her death, she was absolutely convinced

that she had managed to save her children,

that they had escaped the Kennedy curse.

Less than two hours ago, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died

at her Manhattan apartment.

Man: The world once mourned with her. Now it mourns for her.

John Jr. and Jackie were extremely close,

so it was very sad when Jackie died,

and we all did imagine how hard it was on John and his sister

because even though they were adults,

you know, they were orphans.

Last night at around 10:15, my mother passed.

There's been an enormous outpouring of good wishes

from everyone both in New York and beyond,

and I speak for all of our family

when I say we're extremely grateful.

Andersen: After her death, he felt that he lived up to his promise

during her lifetime, but now that she had gone,

he felt that he really had to take to the skies.

And this time he took it up seriously.

Andersen: John began taking lessons

at the Vero Beach, Florida, FlightSafety Academy.

O'Brien: The story here is,

when Kennedy finished his private-pilot training,

he told the manager of this flight academy,

"if I should crash, they'll try to put the blame on you."

It was meant as a joke but today seems sadly prophetic.

Then in 1998, John got his pilot's license.

Well, I was reading USA Today,

and they had a little clip up in the corner

that John F. Kennedy had gotten his pilot's license.

I don't know why it was, but it was just a chill.

It was just a concern that I can't really describe.

Navy divers zero in today on the possible splash point

where John F. Kennedy's plane dove into the Atlantic

off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

And the voice said, "This is the White House.

Stand by for the president."

I went to our command center on Saturday night,

and the phone rang,

and the voice said, "This is the White House.

Stand by for the president."

I really wasn't sure I was getting a real, true story,

and it turned out to be President Clinton,

and he called and said, "I want you to tell me

that you're getting all the resources that you need,"

and that was the end of it.

Man: The search continues in the waters

off Martha's Vineyard with air assets

including helicopters and a C-130 military plane.

Because of the history of that family

and the tragedies that have befallen it

there was a tremendous will.

You could feel it in the coverage,

you could feel it in people,

you could feel it in the newspapers for there

to be a happy ending here.

Larrabee: The longer a case like this goes

that you don't find somebody the more likely, obviously,

it is that you're not going to find somebody alive.

We went through Sunday morning and continued to search.

We used infrared equipment.

We used a variety of technology,

so by the end of Sunday afternoon, there was no doubt

we were no longer going to find a miracle.

We had now been into this thing for almost 48 hours,

and when you start putting all of the facts together,

when you look at the survivability rates

of 68-degree water, we had far exceeded that.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

If someone had been alive,

if they had been floating on the surface of the water,

we would have seen them with a 99.9% chance of detection.

♪♪

I had a very sober conversation with Senator Kennedy.

He was very somber, obviously grieving but very focused

and knew exactly the right questions to ask.

Terenzio: [ Voice breaking ] The Senator's office called

and said, "We're going to announce that we're switching

from search and rescue to search and recovery,"

and I said, "What does that mean?"

And they said they don't expect to find him alive.

[ Sniffles ]

Larrabee: We're going to shift our focus on search and rescue

to search and recovery.

There was a deployment, of course, of a number of ships

with what is called side-sonar radar

to try to begin looking for the wreckage.

And there were some criticisms that so many resources

were being used for one private pilot

who happened to be part of the Kennedy family.

I did talk to Admiral Larrabee at a time

when the operation might normally have ceased,

and he said, "I think we have a chance to find something else

because of the equipment we have here

even though it's difficult."

Hall: The president made the decision

that it was in the interest of the nation

to recover this aircraft as well as the victims.

There was a strong possibility

if the Navy did not recover the wreckage

that someone privately would have done that

for a commercial reason.

If anyone believes that was wrong,

the coast guard is not at fault. I am.

It was because I thought it was the right thing to do

under the circumstances.

Larrabee: And we began a methodical search of the area

from Monday until Tuesday night.

Lin: Navy divers zero in today

on the possible splash point where John F. Kennedy's plane

dove into the Atlantic

off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

And then the news came that it wasn't the dream.

It was the nightmare.

They had confirmed with the use of both the side-scan sonar

and then a remote operated vehicle

that they'd found the aircraft.

Man: Last night at about 11:40, Admiral Larrabee told us

that they hit what they had been looking for,

which was a large portion of the fuselage.

Hall: It was located six or seven miles, I believe,

off Martha's Vineyard in approximately 120 feet of water.

Radziwill: That was almost a relief

because there was just so much anxiety

in those three days about what was going to happen now.

Larrabee: What we didn't know, which was important to us,

was, you know, would we find the remains?

It's funny, you know.

We just learned about it like everybody else,

learned about it on the news. -I'm sorry.

We have to interrupt for some breaking news right now.

Carol?

Yeah, I apologize for that, Leon.

CNN has learned that the body of John F. Kennedy Jr.

has been found off the point of Martha's Vineyard.

The body was found in about 100 feet of water overnight

in a significant part of the wreckage.

Cuomo: They saw John F. Kennedy Jr. still strapped in his seat.

Later that day, they also found Carolyn Bessette's body,

her sister Lauren's body.

Cuomo: You just have these waves of,

why does this keep happening to this family?

How does this keep happening?

And then John of all people?

How can they be gone?

Once they found the plane,

it didn't mean that the mystery was over.

There were a whole host of questions

that we were all running around trying to figure out.

Why did it happen?

Was this equipment malfunction?

Was this pilot error?

Investigators are searching for clues to the cause

of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crash.

Man: The estimates are that it's going to take six months

before investigators will be able to say

what was the cause of this crash.

Camerota: What was the weather that night?

Did anybody at any other airports

get any sort of communication from him?

Woman: When you hear about this rate that this plane was dropping,

what does that say to you?

Well, something was clearly, clearly wrong.

The first question is, obviously, what happened?

Whatdid to John F. Kennedy Jr.?

Before the plane was even found,

the NTSB launched an investigation.

They interviewed witnesses, pulled John's training history.

Did his plane malfunction?

Was it pilot error?

What went on inside that cockpit?

In part two of "How It Really happened:

The Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr."

we find the answers, and it might surprise you.

Good night.