All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S01E12_English

Man:
If you were to have a son,

would you encourage
a political career for him?

Kennedy:
Oh, definitely.

I would hope he would
grow up to be

if not a politician
in the sense

of devoting
all of his time,

I would hope that
whatever he did do,

that he would have some sense
of responsibility

for what went on.

Couric: When you hear him
talk about that,

do you ever feel
like your choice

not to pursue a career
in public service

might have disappointed him?
-No.

I can't imagine that he would
have said anything different

being asked that question
under those circumstances.

You know, he'd always said
that he thought

everyone should run for office.

And, listen,
there's a lot of time in life

to do all sorts
of things.

♪♪

♪♪

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

I'm Hill Harper.

July 17, 1999, we woke up
to shocking news.

John F. Kennedy Jr.,
his wife Carolyn,

and her sister Lauren
were missing,

last seen aboard a private plane
headed for Martha's Vineyard

with John at the controls.

Tonight, our examination
into the crash.

Did the plane malfunction?

Was it sabotaged?

Or was John himself
somehow responsible?

Let's find out
what really happened.

-How you doing today? All right?
-Good. How are you?

Man:
How do you think your mother
would have felt about this?

About this outside?
She would have been amused.

Kagan:
Here's the latest now on the
search for John F. Kennedy Jr.,

his wife,
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy

and his sister-in-law,
Lauren Bessette.

The first thing we knew
was the plane was missing,

and that was really all we knew.

Tuchman:
He had just gotten his private
pilot's license a year earlier

and, by all accounts,
just loved to fly.

Public life and politics
is both serious and fun.

Man: The U.S. coast guard
is conducting a search

off of the coast of New York

extending now
up to Martha's Vineyard.

They were going to leave
from New Jersey

and make a pit stop
at Martha's Vineyard

and then go on to Hyannis Port
for the family wedding.

The plane is reported
as overdue and missing.

It's unusual for a private plane
to go missing that long.

The plane was expected to arrive
in the Hyannis Port area

or Martha's Vineyard area
around midnight of last night.

It did not show up.

I'm honored to be here
in the White House.

Man: At Philbin Beach
in Massachusetts,

luggage and what the coast guard

believes to be parts
of the plane have washed ashore.

We just did not believe that
the worst could have happened,

and it was many days
before that was confirmed,

and for each
and every one of those days,

I refused to believe that he
was gone until it was official.

King: Tonight, the victims
of the JFK Jr. plane crash

have been found
and recovered.

Investigators are trying to
figure out what went wrong.

Andersen:
It was so devastating because,

you know, John was always there,
and there's a reason for that,

because we never really had
anybody as close to royalty,

as close to an American Prince,
in a sense,

as John F. Kennedy Jr.

Man: John!
Woman: Can we get a shot
looking here, please?

Cuomo: He understood keenly
how he was perceived

and what he meant to people,
and it never bittered him,

which is, like,
almost impossible to believe.

He would introduce himself
to everyone as John Kennedy.

"Hi.
My name is John Kennedy,"

even though the entire world
knew who he was.

He never had that presumption
of, "Well, you know who I am."

One of the things that I think
people didn't appreciate John

was how funny he was.

There is one other wedding dress
in the world

exactly like
my wife Carolyn's,

and I believe it's owned
by Dennis Rodman.

[ Laughter ]

Bradley:
He was great with voices.

He did a dead-on
Schwarzenegger imitation.

Berman:
There wasn't a big difference
in the way

John lived
or the way any of us lived.

I mean, he would go
to his apartment,

and, you know, he'd be over
in the kitchen

with a -- you know, some crummy
blender making margaritas.

Woman:
How come you didn't speak?

'Cause Carolyn
did all the work,

so she should do
all the speaking.

-You're such a good speaker.
-[ Chuckles ]

He just seemed like, you know,
as normal a guy

as you could ever be
for being a Kennedy.

Man: Can you answer
one question, John?

Mr. Kennedy?

You can't just answer
one question, if you're happy?

He didn't have a mean bone
in his body.

He just didn't.

What?

I won't.
[ Chuckles ]

And he was a very attractive guy
with very attractive qualities.

I have a pretty normal life,
surprisingly.

I mean, you know,
every now and then

sort of strange things
happen.

When they found the wreckage
of the plane and the bodies,

I mean, it --
we didn't go home after that

because the story was still
in full swing.

There was still a lot of mystery
about what happened,

and so we stayed far long time
while the NTSB and investigators

were trying to piece together
what had gone so terribly wrong.

Just a few months
before the flight,

John purchased a new plane.

I ran into JFK Jr. at a wedding
where we had a long

and very detailed conversation
about aviation.

I said, "John, lookit.

The airplane you're thinking
of getting,

this Piper Saratoga, it's
a very high-performance plane

but it is easy to kind of,
you know, lose control of

if you're not really on it.

My advice to you would be
to buy an A-36,

which is a very stable
instrument platform.

Well, that would be my advice,"
which he didn't take.

The type of plane JFK Jr.
acquired was a Piper Saratoga.

It's a 300-plus
horsepower engine.

John's previous airplane,
a Cessna 182,

was an older airplane.

It was a little bit less complex
as the Piper Saratoga.

John Kennedy had been flying

for I think
approximately 18 months,

had something over
300 flight hours,

but this was a new aircraft
that he had purchased

and he did not have as much
experience in this aircraft

as he had in the previous
aircraft he had owned.

In aviation, most accidents
are not a result

of a single
catastrophic event.

It's usually a chain
of multiple small events.

I have a theory which I call
the falling-domino theory.

So if you could imagine dominos
stacked in a line,

each domino would represent
a very small event

that's happening or a problem.

Lonnstrom:
Once you make one mistake,
that leads to another mistake,

which leads to another mistake,
which leads to another mistake.

We call it falling
behind the curve.

Bailey: In John's case,

there was
less than a dozen events

that would represent
each domino or a problem.

Once one of these dominos
start to fall,

they're taking
everything with it,

and the end result
would be catastrophe.

And that's what happened here.

Carolyn called me
from the emergency room.

She was upset, and she was not
someone who would cry

and get upset all the time,
so I knew it was bad.

This magazine has always been an
exploration of political issues,

and it's a way to engage
the political process.

In the weeks leading up
to this flight that he took,

John had a lot of stress
in his life.

Terenzio:
John had a meeting with
the publisher of the magazine,

and they said that they were not
going to continue

their partnership with him,

and he was starting
to look for funding elsewhere.

If somebody else would have
picked upGeorge

I think we would have moved,
but it was uncertain.

Terenzio:
It was a tough time for John,

but I think especially stressful
for John was Anthony's illness.

Anthony Radziwill
was John's cousin,

and they were like brothers.

They were closer than any --

probably any family member
of John's is -- was to him.

I think John was having
a very hard time

dealing with the fact

that Anthony was probably
going to die soon.

Radziwill: And the doctors
basically said

there's really nothing more
that they can do

and suggested just going
somewhere as peaceful

and quiet and enjoyable,

and we decided then to spend
the summer at the vineyard

in John and Carolyn's house,
and that's where we were.

Memorial Day weekend,
John had his new toy.

I called it a flying lawnmower.

It kind of looked like
a sit-down lawnmower

with a parachute.

Man: You want to knock out
a couple 360s for me?

-Sure.
-Good.

We'll bring it down.

Andersen:
He brings it in just over
the tops of the trees

and in for a very,
very rough landing.

And, unfortunately,
he broke his ankle.

What happened to
your foot, here?

You're in a cast
this evening.

Yeah, I'm in a cast.
I broke my ankle.

It's the first weekend
of the summer,

and I'm laid up
for a couple weeks.

Terenzio: John was so active,
and especially in the summer,

doing things outdoors.

You know, it sucked for him.

Radziwill: Carolyn called me
from the emergency room.

She was upset, and she was
not someone who would cry

and get upset all the time,
so I knew it was bad,

and she was very worried
about him.

It was just going to be
a lot to handle

on top of everything else

that we were dealing with
that summer.

Amanpour: I spent
the last weekend of his life

with him at his estate
in Martha's Vineyard.

And when we left, I know John
was going on to Canada

to try to drum up
some more money

and advertising
and support forGeorge.

And he said, "Next week,

I'm going to my cousin's wedding
in Hyannis Port, Rory,

but why don't you all come up
the following week?"

So we said, "Okay," and,
"Great, lovely. Bye."

And we all waved,
and I still remember him waving

and walking across to his plane
on the tarmac.

My partner, Michael Berman,
and I startedGeorge

and bring a fresh new style
to the way we cover politics.

Terenzio: The week
leading up to the accident,

there was a lot going on.

He was working a lot of hours,
and he was not home a lot,

and Carolyn, I think,
was feeling a little fatigued

by all of the pressures,

and she really wanted
some downtime with John.

And I think it was
frustrating to her

that she didn't see a light

at the end of the tunnel
in terms of,

"When are we ever just
going to be a married couple

who can hang out
and spend time together?"

And she wasn't going to go
to the wedding.

I said, "Look, this is going to
look really bad for John

if you don't show up
at the wedding.

People talk enough about you
guys and about what's going on

and what's not
going on with you,

and I just think
you have to go.

His whole family's
going to be there,

and I think you have to go."

And she said okay.

[ Voice breaking ]
I don't know for sure

if she wouldn't have gone.

I like to think she would
have anyway, but I'll --

I'll never feel good about
having had that conversation.

Man:
How is everything?

Everything is wonderful.

[ Chuckles ]

Andersen:
The plan was that John was going
to fly with Carolyn

to his cousin Rory's wedding
in Hyannis Port,

and they were going to
take Carolyn's sister Lauren

and drop her off
in Martha's Vineyard.

Lonnstrom: An instructor offered
to go with him,

and John turned him down,
and he said,

"No, I want
to do this alone."

Quest: Until now, most of John's
flying, certainly at night,

had been with an instructor.

If the aircraft
had become unstable,

if the horizon had been lost,

if they were
in challenging circumstances,

the instructor
would've taken over

or would have guided John
in the flying of the aircraft.

They'd be alive today.

Bailey: JFK Jr. made that trip
countless times on Friday night

and then returned
on Sunday night.

There was no reason to be
concerned about him

flying up that night.

Quest:
However, he's seen boarding
the plane with crutches,

and it immediately
raises the question,

"Was he in a fit state
to manipulate the --

the rudder controls
on the plane?"

King: That still exists, that
togetherness in the Kennedys?

-Yeah.
-It doesn't go away, right?

No, it's one
of the great lucky things

about being in my family,

which I am --
which has stayed.

Radziwill:
That Friday, they were going to
a wedding in Hyannis,

and Carolyn's sister Lauren
had decided

she was going to spend
the weekend in the vineyard,

and they were going to drop
her off on the way to Hyannis.

But they never made it.

Andersen: It was a hot Friday.

John was working in his office
in Times Square,

the offices ofGeorge.

That last day was, in many ways,
an ordinary summer Friday.

I had lunch with John,
and it was a nice lunch,

although you could tell that
John was a little bit tired.

And we walked back
to the office,

and we were talking about plans
for the weekend,

and John told me
that he was going to be

flying to Hyannis Port,

and...

I was a little concerned.

And I made a joke.

I said to John --

I said,
"John, just don't crash, okay?

Because we need you."

[ Chuckles ]

I wish I could take it back.

I wish that I could have said
instead,

"John, I wish maybe
you should just let

somebody drive you up
this time.

It's been a long week.

I know you're a little tired.

I know your foot hurts.

Just be careful, okay?"

Terenzio: The plan was that John
was going to meet Lauren,

Carolyn's sister,
in the lobby of the building,

and then Carolyn was going
to meet them at the airport.

He got out of the office
later than he wanted to.

There was traffic.

Arnot:
I remember it was the worst
traffic I had seen in 20 years.

I mean,
it was unbelievably bad.

He had expected to leave
in daylight

and, of course,
ended up leaving in twilight.

They actually arrived
an hour later

than they had planned
at the airport.

Man:
With us right now is a pilot
who was also flying in his plane

to Martha's Vineyard
last night,

coincidentally happened
to see John F. Kennedy

get on his plane
and watch his plane take off.

This is Kyle Bailey.

He got to the airport probably
around 8:00-ish, 8:10 P.M.

very inconspicuous --
white t-shirt, casual clothing.

Did he have crutches?
'Cause he had an injury.

I thought I saw one crutch,
and I saw him limping.

Quest: He's seen boarding
the plane on the night,

the Friday night,
with crutches,

and it immediately
raises the question,

"Was he in a fit state
to manipulate the --

the rudder controls
on the plane?"

That turns the plane left
and turns the plane right.

We don't know, is the short
answer, of what effect,

if any,
this had on what happened.

Bailey:
He actually did do a run-up
on the airplane,

which is he was checking

the various components
of the airplane,

making sure the engine
was functioning properly.

It struck me
as a little bit odd.

What went through my mind
was maybe possibly

he was checking
a previous problem,

perhaps,
that he had on the airplane.

My plans that Friday

were to fly to Martha's Vineyard
in my aircraft.

I decided to scrub my plans
that night

because of the reduced
visibility conditions.

JFK Jr. did check the weather
that evening,

and the report was roughly
nine miles of visibility.

Now, the actual weather
was nowhere near that.

We know from other pilots
that were flying that same route

and that same air space that the
haze and the mist was very bad.

Arnot:
The basic discrepancy was this.

There were two
different systems.

There was an automatic system
which misgauged the weather

and led forecasters
to say nine miles visibility.

In aviation terms,

the weather forecast
that JFK Jr. got

was just plain wrong,

and it's that forecast
that accounted for his death.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Radziwill: Carolyn called me
from the plane

right before
they were taking off,

and I think it was probably
a little bit after 8:00.

I don't remember anything

really important
from that conversation.

I didn't certainly think
it would be the last time

I would speak to my friend.

I remember at the end she said,
you know, "I love you."

And I -- for some reason,

I didn't say,
"I love you," back,

and that always stuck with me,

and she said,
"I'll call you when I land,"

and then that was the last
I ever heard from her or anyone.

It wasn't until 8:38
that they took off.

Camerota: The NTSB report,
which was issued later,

tells us a little bit
about what happened.

The tower controller issues
a takeoff clearance.

John acknowledges the takeoff
clearance and then, it says,

"A few seconds later, the tower
controller asked the pilot

if he was heading
towards Teterboro,

to which he applied 'No, sir.

Actually, I'm heading
a little north of it eastbound."

"The tower controller then
instructed the pilot

to make a right
downwind departure.

This was acknowledged
by the pilot at 2038:56.

There was no record of
any further communications

between the pilot
and air traffic control."

So we thought that that was
the last time

that anyone had spoken to John,

but it turns out
that might not be true.

Bailey: All the way at the end
of the NTSB accident report,

we have two witness statements.

So that evening,
I overheard an aircraft calling,

which I thought was calling
Republic operations

and ended up being
Martha's Vineyard's operations.

I had not heard
about these before.

These appear likely to be

the very last transmissions
of JFK Jr.

This is going to be
your life --

editing, publishing,
magazines, writing?

Is that it?

Well, I mean, starting
a magazine is a huge enterprise,

and it's
enormously exciting.

This is what we're doing,
you know, and --

For the time being,
or you want to stay with it?

Well, I would hate to say
I'm going to do anything

till I'm 70,
but I'm going to be doing this

for the foreseeable future.

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

Friday evening, July 16th,
John Kennedy Jr.

boarded his Piper Saratoga along
with his passengers in the back,

his wife, Carolyn,
and her sister, Lauren.

They intended to make a short
flight to Martha's Vineyard.

We now know extraordinary
details about what happened

during their one hour
and three minutes in the air.

Check it out.

♪♪

♪♪

Andersen: At 8:38, he took off
with Carolyn and Lauren

aboard the plane and headed
towards Martha's Vineyard.

He takes off, and he heads
basically northeast.

Andersen:
We learned later that John's
plane came uncomfortably close

to an American Airlines
passenger jet.

As he passes over white plains,

the pilot of that jet is warned
by air traffic controllers

that this small aircraft
is near him

and that he should
pay attention.

They didn't come
close enough to crash,

but they came close enough
to scare everybody.

The pilot of
the American Airlines

says to the controller
at LaGuardia,

"That plane's not talking
to anybody?"

And the LaGuardia guy says, "No,
he's not talking to anybody."

And he never did.

You can imagine if he had
this kind of trouble

navigating
early in the flight,

he might have trouble
later in the flight.

Then he continued
along the Connecticut coastline

and then
the Rhode Island coastline,

and then rather than continuing
along the coast,

where he would have been able to
see the ground and be oriented,

he went directly out over
the ocean to Martha's Vineyard.

Between Point Judith
and Martha's Vineyard,

you have this black,
inky air space over open water

where there would have been
no clues at all.

There was no land to see.
There were no lights.

There was nothing.

And at that point,
he's made a fatal error.

At the end

of the National Transportation
Safety Board report,

we have these
two very interesting

and odd witness statements.

Camerota: These witness reports
are extraordinary

because they reveal something
that none of us knew before,

and that is that
there may have been people

who spoke to John
right before he crashed.

Arnot:
"Mr. Lagudi is employed

at Republic Airport,
Farmingdale, New York.

On the night of the accident,

approximately 21:20
eastern daylight time," or 9:20,

"He was monitoring the UNICOM
frequency 122.95 megahertz.

What a UNICOM frequency is,

is generally
a fixed-base operator,

or a person who handles,
say, the fueling of the airplane

or unloading baggage
of the airplane.

Camerota:
"During that time,

Mr. Perez heard several
transmissions from a pilot

that used a call sign similar
to November 9253 November."

Arnot: "During a period
of approximately 10 minutes,

the pilot attempted to contact
'someone at Martha's Vineyard.'"

Bailey: "One last transmission
was heard.

The pilot stated,
'We're not going to make it

if we don't get a hold
of the facility.'"

In July of 1999, I was
working at Republic Airport

in Farmingdale, New York,

in the crash-fire rescue
division at the airport.

[ Radio chatter ]

We had this radio on our desk
all the time,

and it was very common that
we had the flights in and out,

and you'd hear all sorts
of radio traffic,

you know, not just calling
Republic operations.

That evening,
I overheard an aircraft

calling which I thought was
calling Republic operations

and ended up being
Martha's Vineyard's operations.

And, you know, over the next
10, 15 minutes,

you know, there was
more repeated calls,

and not that it was frantic
or anything like that,

this wasn't any
kind of distress call,

but after
that 15-minute period,

you could kind of hear the tone
of the voice

just kind of maybe getting
a little bit more annoyed,

but definitely some
type of frustration in there,

so I called back.

I was just like, you know,

"Aircraft, we're calling
Martha's Vineyard.

This is Republic airport,
again."

You know, "Is -- anything
I could help you with?"

And just a general statement,
cool, calm and collect was,

"Yeah, we're just trying to
reach Martha's Vineyard to let,

you know,
our people know that

we're not going to
make the airport."

I looked up the phone number for
Martha's Vineyard's operation.

There was no answer
at that phone number.

I think I ended up calling,
like, two or three times

and just didn't get an answer.

At this point, I wrote down the
tail number just out of habit.

Any time we pick up a radio,

we'd always kind of
just jot it down.

That was it.

I didn't find out what happened
until about 3:30 the next day

showing back up for work,

getting ready to relieve
the day crew.

You know, they were like,
"Oh, did you hear what happened?

JFK Jr.'s plane is missing."

And it's like,
"Oh, yeah? Oh."

Still at this point, no,
you know, alarm or concern.

The desperate hunt
for John F. Kennedy Jr.

continues at this hour.

17 miles offshore
was the last contact

with the Kennedy plane.

Lagudi: But it wasn't until
later that evening

we started watching
the news on TV,

and then the news had shown
an actual picture of his plane

from the side
that showed his tail number.

And the gentleman
that I was working with,

he looked at me,
and I looked at him,

and the tail number
kind of rang a bell.

We pulled out the paper
out of the garbage,

and, sure enough,
the tail numbers matched.

It was a bit of a shock,
you know?

It was like, "Oh, my God."

As it turns out,
the UNICOM radio frequency

that these guys were monitoring
is the same radio frequency

that they use at
the Martha's Vineyard airport.

So it is feasible that the voice
that they heard

and the person that they were
listening to

was John Jr. that night.

Quest: He said, "It's likely

we're not going to make
Martha's Vineyard."

And we don't really know
what it means.

It's there.
It's hanging there.

But if you look at the timing
of it,

it's about 20 minutes or so

before he starts
his final descent.

I had not heard
about these before.

These appear likely to be

the very last transmissions
of JFK Jr.

What is fascinating is that
the line between total success

and absolute catastrophe
is very narrow.

Radziwill: I'm calling
John's friend in Hyannis

and screaming
into the phone,

"Please, you have to find
somebody in John's family

to tell them what's going on."

Woman: I was wondering, John,
what aspect of your personality

do you credit
your mother the most

for having instilled
in you?

I think that there's a sense
of not worrying too much

about things
that you can't control,

just sort of living your life
and doing what you feel

and where your interests
take you.

♪♪

It was a very spooky,
even scary, place to be,

over those waters,
over the vineyard

that particular weekend.

I made a nearly identical flight
to JFK Jr.

at nearly the same time.

We went past Martha's Vineyard,

and I have a device called
a moving map display.

The display said I was
two-and-a-half miles

from Martha's Vineyard.

So without looking out
the window,

I said to my nephew, Tyler,

I said, "Tyler,
there's Martha's Vineyard."

And he goes, "Where?
I don't see anything."

I mean, this is totally
unpredicted.

The weather never said this.

Quest: If you look at what
his instructors said,

John Kennedy was an average
pilot who showed promise,

he showed some skill,

but he was by no means
an exceptional pilot,

and what he encountered
on this Friday night

were challenging
flying conditions that took him

to the edge of the envelope
of his experience.

There's two ways to fly.

One is visual,
and the other is instrument.

VFR is visual flight rules.

It literally means flying
by looking out of the window.

You can see the horizon.

You can see where you're going.

IFR, instrument flight rules --
completely different.

This is where you fly only
by using the instruments

because the visibility outside
is either so bad

or it's nighttime
and you have no horizon.

You're over water.

In this situation,

you are literally looking
only at the instruments.

John Kennedy, he had done
some training towards IFR,

but he was not qualified
for it.

Lonnstrom:
These weather forecasts
were wrong.

So he actually is
in instrument conditions,

but he doesn't know it.

He needs a horizon to fly.

He's not qualified to fly
with his instruments,

so he needs this horizon,

and he needs to keep that plane
level with that horizon,

and he sees no horizon,
so he can't do that.

It's just pitch black,

and that's where
he lost control.

Andersen: He becomes spatially
disoriented.

You can't tell up from down
or left from right.

You don't know where you are.

Your body is telling you
one thing

when the reality
is something entirely different.

[ Radio chatter ]

The inner ear is saying,

"Hang on.
We feel a movement to the left,"

but the brain's not seeing
anything like this movement.

The brain's just
seeing nothing,

and now your inner ear
is telling you,

"Hang on.
We're banking left," but, no,

you're banking,
actually, right.

What the NTSB suggests happens
is he starts the descent,

and he continues
a normal descent.

Then he does a turn,
then climbs again,

then he does another turn
in the opposite direction,

then he climbs again, and then
he starts a long descent

which gets steeper and steeper
all the way.

Lonnstrom:
There's a natural tendency

when you're descending
to pull back on the yoke

because that makes the plane
go up if you're level.

But if you're already spinning
and you pull back on the yoke,

it puts you
in the graveyard spiral,

and that's what happened to him.

Quest:
What is fascinating is that
the line between total success

and absolute catastrophe
is very narrow.

He could've been lucky
this night,

and he might have just got
one glimpse

of one piece of the horizon

that would have allowed him
to get control of the aircraft

or see where he was going
or manage his flying.

But that line is so narrow,
and, of course,

he fell on the wrong side.

Once he started to pull up,
he had no chance.

During the NTSB investigation,
they looked,

and they said that
the airspeed indicator

was mechanically
at its highest stop,

meaning he was going in
excess of 200 miles an hour.

What we can tell you is that
it was a catastrophic crash.

They know that all three people

aboard that plane died
from the impact.

Among the many, many tragic,
heartbreaking ironies

is the fact that John's plane
went down within sight

of his mother's beloved
Red Gate Farm estate

on Martha's Vineyard.

The plane went down
just before 10:00 P.M.,

but it was a number of hours

before anyone realized
that they were missing.

The phone rang at midnight,

and I got this -- this sick
feeling in my stomach,

and it was John's friend Pinkie.

And he said, you know,
"Are they there with you?

I'm at the airport,
and they're not here."

And then -- and then I thought,
"Oh [bleep]"

And I just bolted out of bed.

I spent 15 years as a journalist
and producer at ABC News,

and I thought,
"Okay, I need to, like,

figure out this story
and solve it somehow.

I need to figure out where they
are because they're somewhere."

One call led to another
to another to another,

and I called the Hyannis airport
many times

'cause I assumed
that they had made a mistake.

And the whole time,
I'm calling John's friend

and screaming into the phone,

"Please, you have to find
somebody in John's family

to tell them what's going on."

It was probably between
2:00 or 3:00 when I realized

I had to call the coast guard
and report John's plane missing.

I said, "My cousin is missing,"
and then he took the name,

and I think there was
a little bit of a --

like, a gasp
on the other end of the phone.

Andersen: The NTSB launched
an investigation

following the crash,
and they discovered

that there was something
actually on the plane

that could've saved his life.

We'll be including your calls
for John F. Ken--

Do you still use the junior?
-No.

I mean,
but I don't not use it.

You use the initials?

Sometimes,
but generally not.

You're your own man,
aren't you, John?

You want your own bewilderment.
We'll be right back.

He's in the right business,
media.

We'll be right back.
Don't go way.

Larrabee: We found the airplane
at a location

southwest
of Martha's Vineyard.

Hall: In excess of 70%
of the aircraft

was brought up to the surface
by the United States Navy,

done under the close examination
and supervision

of the board investigators.

Larrabee: The plane was in
pretty tough shape.

The engine had been driven
back into the cockpit.

It looked like it almost
had gone in nose-first.

Well, these propellers
hit the water with such force

that they were bent
into a curve.

Hall: Investigators oversaw
the transfer of the wreckage

to a hangar on shore

and a thorough additional
investigation of the aircraft

took place that time.

Andersen: The NTSB launched
an investigation

following the crash,
and they discovered

there was something
actually on the plane

that could've saved his life.

Arnot: JFK Jr.'s airplane was
a very sophisticated aircraft,

and it had an autopilot.

Bailey: So the question that was
on everybody's mind was,

"If he could just push one
or two buttons,

why did this incident happen?"

Quest:
We know from previous flights,

that John Kennedy
has played around with this

with his flight instructor,
but he has not used it before.

Arnot: So one of
the greatest tragedies here

is that there was that fully
functioning autopilot

in the aircraft
that could've saved his life,

saved the lives of those
two young women,

and yet it wasn't engaged.

It seems crazy.

The NTSB report was released
about 11 months later.

Hall:
The investigation determined

that the probable cause
of the accident

was the pilot's
spatial disorientation.

Lonnstrom:
I believe he made mistakes
on this flight.

Some of them
are relatively minor

and would not have caused
the accident,

but a contributing factor.

Arnot:
It's always a chain of events
that ends up in a disaster.

The traffic was terrible.

He took off too late.

He didn't have a copilot.

He took a course over the ocean.

He was stressed.

Lonnstrom: The weather forecast
certainly shares some blame.

So you take all of these factors
together,

and they snowball
to create this tragedy

that killed JFK Jr.
and these two young women.

Cuomo:
You just start getting plagued
with these two words

that just always surrounded him
when he was alive,

and certainly now
shadow him in death -- what if?

What if he hadn't flown?

What if he had
some other pilot take them?

What if they had driven?

What if? What if? What if?

Larrabee: I survived
the World Trade Center.

I was one of the lucky people
that survived.

I truly believe that that day
people made decisions

of turning right
or turning left

and they were
life-or-death decisions.

Do I get in an airplane at 8:30
at night on a Friday night

and fly to Martha's Vineyard,
or do I wait the next morning?

I mean, if you think about
your own life

and the decisions
you make every day,

I don't think you could make
anybody feel bad

about the fact
that he decided to go.

All we know are three young
people lost their lives --

John Kennedy, Carolyn,
and Lauren Bessette.

Gary Tuchman is on hand
at the --

in front of the Tribeca,
Manhattan, apartment

that was
John F. Kennedy Jr.'s.

After he died, there were vigils
outside his apartment.

People holding candles,
people crying,

people just wanting
to be there.

Andersen:
Ultimately, the idea of a burial
at sea was agreed upon

because John had spoken
of it himself not long before.

Within 24 hours of the bodies
being pulled up,

we went out to the crash site
and scattered the ashes

from urns there
from the end of the boat.

Larrabee:
That was kind of an amazing end
to this story,

when you think about,

we'd only been out there
two days before,

searching for three people,

and now they are
being buried at sea.

Tuchman: The funeral was held
at the St. Thomas More Church

in Manhattan
on the Upper East Side.

Radziwill: It was --
it was a really a hard day.

Terenzio:
President and Mrs. Clinton
and Chelsea were there

and John's whole family,
obviously,

and Muhammad Ali was there,

and it was a beautiful service.

Amanpour:
Wyclef Jean sang at the funeral,

and I just remember
falling apart at that.

It was really emotional.

Cuomo: Senator Ted Kennedy was
a huge figure in John's life,

and he was also
the head of the family.

So when John died,
it made sense

that we were going to hear
from the senator,

but the eulogy that he gave

wound up capturing so much more
than people expected.

Here's what he said.

"From the first day of his life,

John seemed to belong
not only to our family

but to the American family.

The whole world knew his name
before he did."

Radziwill:
"But John was so much more
than those long-ago images

emblazoned in our minds."

Andersen:
"He was a boy who grew into man
for a zest for life

and a love of adventure."

Bailey:
"He saw things that could be
lost in the glare of a spotlight

and he could laugh
at the absurdity

of too much pomp
and circumstance."

Arnot: "He drove his own car
and flew his own plane,

which is how he wanted it."

Quest: "And for 1,000 days,
he was a husband who adored

the wife who became
his perfect soul mate."

Tuchman: "He was lost on
that troubled night,

but we will always wait for him
so that his time,

which was not doubled
but cut in half,

will live forever in our memory

and in our beguiled
and broken hearts."

Camerota: "We dared to think
in that other Irish phrase

that this John Kennedy
would live to comb gray hair

with his beloved Carolyn
by his side.

But like his father, he had
every gift but length of years."

"We who have loved him
from the day he was born

and watched the remarkable man
he became,

now bid him farewell."

If you're asking
if it's hard being me, it's --

Well, it's brought you
a unique life.

Absolutely,
and great opportunities

and some challenges,

but all in all,
I feel very fortunate.

In 2001,
a judge granted permission

for the Bessette family

to settle a claim against
JFK Jr.'s estate for,

"The wrongful death
of their daughters,"

with the Bessettes
receiving a payout

reportedly in the millions.

But whether or not
he's to blame

for the tragic circumstances of
their deaths, there's no doubt

John F. Kennedy Jr. lived
an extraordinary life --

a man dedicated
to charity work,

his career, his family,
and service to our country.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.