Original subtitles

NTSB investigators face pressure like never before

The eyes of the world were going beyond this

A Piper Saratoga has crashed into the sea

At the controls of the small plane one of the biggest names in American life,

John F Kennedy junior!

He was a rising star

Some people were thinking: He had a shot of being a President of the US

Another dark chapter in a tragic family-saga.

There was this Kennedy-curse

Now all the world wants to know:

"What is the real story behind the crash that killed a Kennedy?"

Brokkenpiloten seizoen 14 Editie 06

It is a warm summer evening at Essex County airport,

less than an hour from the busy streets of Manhattan

The small airfield serves many of New York's wealthy citizens,

boarding private planes for weekend getaways

Preparing to pilot his own plane, a man who in many ways is the elite of the elite,

John F Kennedy Jr.

He was breathtakingly handsome.

He was such a crowned prince,

people kept awaiting for the moment when he would run for office publicly

it was like a sort of an assumption, I think quietly in the background

Though JFK junior has not yet run for office, he is already a huge celebrity.

People magazine's sexiest man alive

"Lady and Gentlemen, meet George!"

He is also the editor in chief of his own splashy publication

and most importantly, he is the only son of the late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

The public fascination with John Kennedy junior stems from his father's extraordinary life

and tragic death.

The beloved President was cut down by an assassins bullet,

just three days before John junior's 3rd birthday.

We watched this adorable little child playing under the desk in the Oval Office

We watched him riding on his daddy's back in the White House,

playing horsie with his daddy.

We watched him of course at that one terribly tragic and sad moment

when this small child in a little short neat coat saluted his father's casquet when he came by him

36 years later, on a July evening,

John Kennedy junior waits for his wife Caroline,

who is running late.

They are flying to a family-wedding

Also hitching a ride on Kennedy's plane is his sister in law,

Lauren Bessette.

John plans to drop Lauren off

and continue on with his wife to the Kennedy- family compound in Hyannes port, Massachusetts

I think that he was impatient to get to the wedding,

He was probably testy, whoingbe

Though he had his pilot's license for more than a year,

this will be the first time Kennedy has flown "Solo"

since breaking his ankle, six weeks earlier in a hang-glider accident

He liked extreme sports,

he liked to take risks, liked to push limits

He wasn't satisfied with living just in the straightened narrow lane

At 8:20 PM, Kennedy's wife Caroline Bessette arrives at the airport.

Caroline Bessette was an American beauty,

She was this Goddess like creature with her beautiful blond hair pulled back

They really were this amazingly beautiful couple together.

Since marrying John three years ago, Caroline's been plunged into the media-spotlight

Paparazzi haunt the famous couple at every turn

They still went out, they went jogging, they went walking with the dog

They did their best to keep having a life

The constant scrutiny turns off signs of tension between the couple

There are rumours that the marriage is in trouble.

Still limping from his accident,

Kennedy makes a final pre-flight check of his new plane,

a Piper Saratoga.

It's a top of the line single engine 6-seater,

It was well equipped with a Global Positioning System

The selling point for the Saratoga was it has four club-seats, facing each other

in the rear of the aircraft

Seatbelts on, please

There are some head-sets back, there if you want to listen to it

The flight to Marthas Vineyard should take about 90 minutes

After that, it's just a short hop to Hyannis Port

The route from Essex Kennedy Airport to Martha's Vineyard was quite familiar to him,

He has done it several times,

At 8:40 PM, more than 2 hours behind schedule,

the flight gets on their way

75 knots,

Like many private pilots, Kennedy is flying under visual flight rules or VFR

You stay clear of clouds, you have to have good visibility,

you are always looking outside, able to see the horizon,

and orient the airplane, using your visual queues.

That's the best view of New York you are ever going to get

Once you turn toward the East, you have a nice view of Manhattan.

The Hudson River,

On a good day you could see a 30 miles or so, at altitude.

Kennedy cruises at 5500 ft,

a typical altitude for small planes

Around 9:30 PM, he leaves the mainland coast behind.

His flightpath was following the coast,

so he would want to go South, over the Rhode Island Sound

to line up and set-up for a long straight end for the runway.

He expects to reach their first destination in about 0.5 hour

But by 10:00 PM

Martha's Vineyard Tower, Security here

The Air Traffic Controller at Martha's Vineyard Airport has had no contact with Kennedy's plane

Any word of that flight?

Negative, I haven't been notified of that arrival

Overdue flights are not uncommon

but as the hours pass, with no sign of the Piper Saratoga...

...a chilling reality sets in.

John F Kennedy, his wife and sister in law are missing without a trace.

The Kennedy curse is a handy monacor

but there is some truth to it.

The history of the Kennedy-family is marked by tragedy.

Joseph Kennedy Jr., JFK's late uncle,

died while on a top secret mission in World War II

President John F Kennedy and his younger brother Robert

were both assassinated.

And numerous cousins have since died.

It does seem like there is something,

some pole over the family sometimes.

At 03:00 AM,

the FAA calls the coast guard and launches a search for Kennedy's plane

Now 5 hours overdue

Curtis Sumrok of the US Coastguard joins the search.

I think we did have a little bit of a hype of hope that we would find this person

because they did have such a tragic history.

The first priority is to narrow the search area

but there is little to go on.

It looks like he didn't file a flight plan

Kennedy's precise route is unknown

Unlike commercial aircraft,

low flying private planes are not closely monitored by Air traffic Control

The Coast Guard will have to use radar-data to estimate Kennedy's last location.

It's an approximation at best.

Once planes leave the coast, to fly over open ocean,

the radar system hear only if flying above 1100 ft

We don't know what happens after that altitude,

so if there was some attempt to recover, it could fly 100 yards or it could fly 5 miles

All the search is no for certain is that Kennedy's plane is missing

and it's up to them to find it.

At first light,

US military and local law enforcement-agencies join forces with the Coast Guard

in a desperate hunt for Kennedy's plane

Everyone knows that if the small plane ditched at sea,

survivors won't last long in the cold Atlantic waters.

The scale of the effort to search for the aircraft

...it was massive

Typically that doesn't happen in most aviation accidents,

but this was, This was JFK junior

and it captured the eyes of the country and the world.

News that JFK junior, one of America's favourite sons is missing...

stunns the nation

The public wants answers.

As soon as this story broke, the media were on the roll

It seems like every major news-organisation had a presence in our parking line

Trying to spot the 3 survivors in miles of open water,

is a mammoth-task

It's extremely difficult

because you are looking for something that is about the size of a basket ball

and you are flying 100 - 300 ft above that.

The outcry from the public was great

and there were people getting in their private boats to go out and help search

As the search-effort continues, all of America seems to hold its breath

People had to know the story because on the one hand

How could this happen, on the other hand:

there was this Kennedy-curse!

As the hours pass, millions across America and around the world begin to fear the worst.

John Kennedy junior,

may be lost for ever.

The day after Kennedy's plane went missing,

searchers make a grim discovery.

Pieces of aircraft-debris

floating in the fast currents of Martha's Vineyard

There was a part of the nose-wheel, some cushions

one of the suitcases was in there

and various other parts that were unidentifiable from the aircraft

The shattered pieces leave little hope that anyone is alive.

Everyone was hopeful that there would be another outcome

but it just never came.

Meanwhile, the NTSB is already at work trying to figure out what went wrong.

Former US Army pilot Robert Pierce will be the investigator in charge

In terms of the visibility, the curiosity by the American people

this was Bob Pierce's biggest assignment as an investigator in charge

Pierce immediately faces the possibility

that the plane was brought down by a deliberate criminal act.

FBI files reveal that John F Kennedy junior had been the target

of at least 3 kidnapping threats

The most recent just 4 years earlier, in 1995.

"Everybody loved the guy"

Because there was a political figure on board, there were many causes that were being repeated

about a potential terrorist attacks

...a bomb on board,

was it shot down?

The answers could lie with the wreckage,

but it is still lost at the bottom of the Atlantic

NAVY divers scout the ocean floor searching for sunken debris.

For now,

investigators must learn what they can from the Saratoga's flightpath

They compile data from coastal radar stations

to build a picture of how the plane was flying

Why is he flying the wrong direction?

We always consider recorded radar data as a poor man's black box

It is a way to get some information in regards to the flight-path,

the airspeed, the altitude

And that was very helpful in this investigation.

About 30 miles from Martha's Vineyard,

the plane makes a series of unusual manoeuvres

OKAY, first he descends, he turns right

and climbs again

Level for one minute

He is flying like someone who cannot control the plane

The pattern that was indicated by radar was quite unusual

for a normal type of descend and approach to an airport

We don't know at that point exactly why

Finally, on July, the 20th, 4 days after Kennedy's plane went down,

US NAVY divers locate the sunken wreckage...

...and the bodies of the three people on board

Good day, we are able to bring closure to two families

and I think that realise is very important

I can still remember pictures of him saluting as the motor went by in the funeral procession

I think that the hardest part is seeing

the tragic loss of so many of the generations there

John F Kennedy was really the crown prince of this family

It seems almost Shakespearian in its tragedy the way we lost him.

Hey, Jeff Guzetti

NTSB investigator Jeff Guzetti flies out from Washington to join the team

My boss at the time called me saying:

"Listen, if they find the wreckage,

you are going to be the guy that is going up there to lead the examination.

He starts by studying video-evidence

Images of the wreckage, captured by NAVY divers

For Guzzetti, the way the pieces are fallen, and the distance between them, are important clues.

You have to answer the first question:

Did the airplane crash and disintegrate upon impact

or was there some sort of in-flight breakup?

He hopes to answer that question by locating what investigators call:

"The four corners"

When the nose, the tail and the two wings are found close together,

it is powerful evidence that the plane was intact when it hit the ocean

All the major components of the airplane were in a localized area,

120 ft beneath the surface of the water.

So, we were very confident that this was not an in-flight break up

The discovery helps put to rest lingering fears that there could have been a bomb on board.

For investigators, eliminating one potential cause is a step forward,

but the job has only begun.

Guzzetti knows he'll be feeling intense pressure, every step of the way.

The visibility, the crush of the media, the eyes of the world we are going to be on this

From that standpoint, I knew I had to do my job by the book.

Salvage efforts have recovered 75 % of John's Piper Saratoga from the ocean

If we were ever going to provide a story to the public and the aviation community,

and to the family

we needed to clean as much evidence as we could and that meant:

Trying to find every piece that was available in the wreckage

Investigators begin a methodical analysis of the debris.

The small plane was not required to carry flight recorders

Guzzetti will have to uncover the story behind this crash by interpreting the clues,

imprinted on the crumbled debris

If Guzzetti can understand exactly how the plane hit the water,

it might tell him what went wrong.

"The right wing is much more damaged than the left wing"

Bit by bit, the damage reveal how the plane came down.

When you look at crush marks on a structure, they can tell you a lot

There is something called 'accordion crush damage'

where you just take the structure,

and the impact crushes it down and it looks like an accordion

which gives you an idea of what the angle of impact was

'Huh, I wasn't expecting that!'

'The roof is badly damaged but...

...no damage on the floor'.

I think they were upside down

banking right,

hit the water,

like this.

The discovery paints a terrifying picture of the flight's final moments

Investigators know how the plane hit the water, but they still don't know why.

and mounting public pressure is never far from their minds.

I had heard that there was a newspaper

that was offering $250,000 for any photograph of the wreckage

Since I was in charge of taking photographs of the wreckage,

I had to make sure that all the photographs were going to be secured

and not leaking out.

The pressure from the media, they really want to know what is going on

and if you are an investigator, you have the pressure from your boss

that get things done,

so that the media and the public can be informed of what is going on

The Saratoga is a single engine propeller plane

If that engine failed,

it might explain why Kennedy lost control of his plane

Guzzetti examines the propeller blades

The way they are bent and twisted,

tells him they were spinning when they hit the water

The only way to get that to happen,

is to have a propeller under power, being propelled by the engine,

so he didn't have a power problem

The evidence is clear:

There is nothing wrong with that engine

Investigators shift their attention to the complex mechanisms

that control the motion of the plane.

All right, let us run the cables and see what kind of shape they are in

A system of cables and rods connects the yoke to the ailerons and flaps, elevators and rudder,

that steer the airplane in flight.

What about flight controls?

Was there something about the way the airplane was flying that was not pilot-induced,

but was a problem with the airplane itself?

If a control-cable breaks in mid-flight...

...it can lead to a catastrophic loss of control.

The entire world wants to know if that is what happened in the night-sky

of the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

A close examination of the flight control system of JFK Jr Piper Saratoga

provides conclusive evidence.

None of the control services malfunctioned.

There is also no sign that the cable snapped before the crash.

We found control cables that were separated,

but they were separated in what we call 'Tensal overload' due to impact forces.

It is supposed to corroded cable or some sort of pre-existing failure.

Investigators are left to wonder: What else could have brought down JFK jr's plane?

There is another failure that might explain the bizarre flightpath

Pilots rely on one instrument more than any other

to warn them when they are not flying straight and level

The attitude indicator tracks the plane's motion in space

Up and down, Left and right

If it malfunctioned and gave Kennedy faulty information,

it might have fooled him into steering the plane into the ocean.

We harvest it,

All of those components, we took them to the NTSB's laboratory

and photographed many of them and disassembled them and looked inside.

But after a thorough examination of all the aircraft's instruments,

the search for clues comes up empty.

Investigators conclude there was nothing wrong with the Piper Saratoga.

We found no evidence of any kind of pre-impact mechanical malfunction.

All right, so you saw him out on the tarmac?

The focus now shifts to the pilot.

Do you know what time that was?

Investigators asks witnesses to help them piece together

the final days of JFK jr's life

They hope someone will tell them something

that might explain why he lost control of his plane

We wanted to do a 72 hour analysis

of what the pilot was going through prior to the event:

What his actions were, what his stressors might have been

Who he talked to, what was on his mind, those things very important

what his physical conditions might have been

Those things are very important in an accident like this

Why did the pilot fail to maintain control of the airplane?

Is there anything out of the ordinary?

They learned that Kennedy was seen leaning on crutches,

just before the flight.

He had had surgery done on his ankle,

and he had just had a walking type of cast removed the day before

Pilots needs both their hands and their feet to fly a plane.

When you apply rudders pedal-pressure in an airplane,

it obviously goes through the leg and through the ankle.

Could Kennedy's injury explain the fatal flightpath?

A check of medical records provides the answer

Though he was still using crutches some of the time,

his records show his ankle was strong enough to fly the plane.

He was fit to fly.

That ankle shouldn't have given him any trouble at all.

It is another dead end.

The search for clues continues,

uncovering worrisome details about a rocky marriage

and mounting stress in Kennedy's life.

I am just trying to get a sense of his state of mind.

Now, I understand his marriage was going through a rough patch

For months,

John and Caroline's troubled relationship has been fother for the tabloids

Perhaps the strain distracted Kennedy from the challenging task of piloting his plane

Everyone comes out afterwards and talks about this and that

and that she was very difficult, she was demanding

But you never know how much of that is just people speculating

After a high profile launch, Kennedy's magazine is also in trouble.

He genuine launched that magazine 'George' with an interesting in providing a voice,

to bring power to his generation

Magazines are pretty expensive and hard to run

It wasn't doing to well by the end.

Mr Kennedy led a very busy life.

I am sure he had a lot on his mind that night

Maybe that was what rattled him when he was up there

As in any activity, your state of mind affects your behaviour.

and for a pilot, that pilot may not realize that the stress he is under,

can affect how he flies,

What is his decision-making skills are at that point,

in relation to how safe is it to go to fly today.

Saratoga 9253 waiting for take off, from runway 22

John Kennedy Jr appeared to be the definition of grace under pressure,

but what was the real story?

Did he have the piloting skills to handle the added pressure...

...of flying his own plane.

Over 300 flight-hours, that was in total

He had a fair number of flight hours under his belt

Investigators check John Kennedy's training record

to learn all they can about his experience as a pilot.

So, what did he learn in 300 hours?

I'd like to try a few approaches again

Kennedy had been taken lessons on and off for 17 years

but he had relatively little experience flying on his own.

Starting my descend now?

In Mr Kennedy's case,

of the 310 hours he had only about 70 to 75 were by himself,

flying solo.

There is another troubling detail,

I can't imagine any of them got to know the guy too well.

Kennedy trained with a lot of different instructors

during those years.

Should I throttle back more?

I would not want to train the way Mr Kennedy ended up training

I would prefer to stick with one instructor

especially during the instrument portion of that training.

Hey,

sorry I am late

Tim O'Neill was one of John Kennedy's instructors.

He was a very busy person,

so he'd be running in and running out and sometimes he'd be running late

'I hate that highway, it is always packed'

It is not very helpful in a learning process

to have other things on your mind.

So, I read what you told my colleague

I just need to confirm a few things.

Investigators learn of another tragic pre-flight choice

one that might have made all the difference

You actually offered to make the flight with him on that night?

One of his instructors offered to fly with him at the day of the crash

'Thanks for the offer, but I want to do it alone'

That is probably the biggest point, right here

He made the decision to continue

not realizing the importance of the stress-ors that were on them himself

and his own limitations.

He is only qualified for visual flying.

He hadn't finished his training for instrument-only flights!

Investigators also learn

that Kennedy was still working towards his instrument rating

A crucial qualification for flying at night...

...or in bad weather

Instrument flying is one of the hardest ratings to get

when you are moving up through your licenses and ratings.

And it involves flying without looking outside the aircraft.

So that when you are in the clouds, you can maintain control of the aircraft.

So he was not ready to fly if he couldn't see.

So, could he see, or not?

I need the most detailed weather available

With an instrument rating, you are able to take off

flying in through the clouds,

and continue on where visual flight rules you would be unable to take off

Computer records reveal that Kennedy checked the weather online at 6:48 PM

It was a clear day with good visibility.

But Caroline's last minute shopping

and the heavy rush hour traffic pushed their departure time back by more than two hours.

'Anything heard from your sister?'

'No, she went shopping, I guess'

'It is Friday, I told her it was going to be jammed

By that time, weather-conditions were deteriorating.

With haze, making it hard to see the horizon.

Interviews with pilots flying that evening,

reveal that visibility was especially bad below 6000 ft.

the altitude at which Kennedy was flying.

There was some haze coming and going and some stations reported some mist .

'I hope it clears up for the weekend'

Investigators believe Kennedy found himself flying

in difficult visual conditions

Conditions too dark and hazy for a pilot,

used to rely on visual queues instead of instruments.

Not a great night for this guy to be flying

The weather plays an immense role in all aviation-accidents,

even when you may not think it would

They wonder if Kennedy was getting weather-updates during the flight

'127.25'

To get accurate information,

he would have had to tune his radio to the weather transmission from Martha's Vineyard

The radio from Kennedy's plane is among the many parts,

salvaged from the ocean.

Investigators test the radio

to confirm that it was working

Then, they check to see if it was set at the right frequency.

Fingers crossed if you can figure out what he dialled in

126.25

He was off by one digit.

Kennedy had tuned his radio to the wrong frequency

In this case, the frequency was off by one number

The discovery tells investigators

that Kennedy likely wasn't getting the weather-updates he needed.

But it tells them something else as well

something that may finally explain the fatal crash...

...that saddened an entire nation.

Investigators zero in on a theory that may explain the fatal accident

that killed John F Kennedy junior, his wife Caroline and her sister Lauren

At the centre of it all,

a pilot in over his head battling a mounting list of pressures.

Having problems at work, I need to get to this wedding,

my ankle hurt, I get in the airplane, that is why I bought this airplane,

I need to get from point A to point B

that is the whole point of having this airplane and learning to fly

So, we are going to go

I think I know why things started to go wrong

A badly tuned radio, and a hazy night

allow investigators to imagine a scenario that may explain the flight's tragic end.

It started after he cleared New York

In hazy conditions,

Kennedy would have no visual reference to tell him which way is up.

The visibility was bad...

...and it is getting worse

He starts his descend

As it was getting dark in marginal conditions,

he was in a very precarious area for Visual Flight Rules

or VFR flying

As he made it out over the water, and all those lights from behind him,

all that visual reference was gone.

He looks away from his instruments

Maybe he was trying to tune the radio

He might look to see if the frequency had changed

or if he had got it wrong in his mind

'Still nothing'

'Just set with the radio, no big deal'

While all events going on

it is quite easy for the airplane to slip into a little bit of a bank

one direction or another

If you are in a turn, for an extended period of time,

your inner ear can feel a reverse of the turn

and you can get become spatially disorientated very easy

'It can't be'

He looks back, his instruments are telling him one thing

his senses another

You have to be well trained to disregard what your brain is saying

and look at your instruments, work on your scan,

and fly by your instruments

Once he becomes disoriented,

Kennedy is too inexperienced to force himself to believe his instruments,

no matter what his senses are telling him

He may not even have known, what type of unusual attitude he was in

and he was about to hit the water.

It is spatial disorientation

You are really left with the gaping possibility that was always there

which was the classic case of spatial disorientation

which unfortunately has killed so many pilots.

Investigators conclude that Kennedy's strange flightpath

is the result of his confused efforts to level the plane

It is one sorry flightpath

Textbook disorientation

The NTSB's official report cites:

Kennedy's failure to maintain control of the airplane

during a descend over water at night

The high profile of the accident

brings new attention to the dangers of spatial disorientation

especially for pilots who are new to instrument flying

I always try to teach students:

"Be ready to buy an airline ticket'

And there was numerous cases where my students left their plane where it was

And they call me and I go and pick it up for them

You need to always have an out

And an airline ticket ...

...is your best out

I don't think the public wanted to accept a pilot error

or pilot arrogance which may have been the same thing in this case

as the cause

Losing him was one thing but losing him to his own mistake

made it much worse

A young person was such promise

Some people were thinking:

He had a shot of being President of the United States

In the end we lost a piece of our American innocence

It was a tragedy.

Narrator: Jonathan Aris

Subtitles: Rein Croonen