Saturday July 17 1:54 PM ET
Plane Carrying John Kennedy Jr. Is Missing
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A small plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr.,
the son of the slain president and an heir to the family political dynasty,
was missing after taking off for a family wedding Friday night, authorities
said Saturday.
A massive search was underway off the New York coast for the plane, reportedly carrying
Kennedy’s wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, that took off from a county airport in
Fairfield, New Jersey Friday at 8:38 p.m. (0038 GMT Saturday).
The Piper Saratoga plane never arrived at Martha’s Vineyard, a resort island in Massachusetts,
where it was expected about 10 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The Kennedy family alerted authorities at 2 a.m. Saturday, officials said.
Kennedy, 38, whom many know best as the solemn toddler saluting the flag-draped coffin of his
slain father, President John F. Kennedy, at his 1963 funeral, got his pilot’s license a year ago.
Now editor of George magazine, Kennedy was headed to Massachusetts for the wedding of his
cousin Rory Kennedy, the Coast Guard said.
The family canceled the wedding, which had been scheduled for 6 p.m., a family spokesman said.
A barrage of rescue planes and boats was searching for the aircraft, a Piper Saratoga, in the Atlantic
Ocean waters from the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island north to Cape Cod in Massachusetts,
authorities said.
Kennedy’s plane disappeared only a day before the 30th anniversary of the Chappaquiddick incident
in which his uncle Sen. Edward Kennedy left a party with his young aide Mary Jo Kopechne in his
Oldsmobile and accidentally drove off a small wooden bridge next to Martha’s Vineyard.
Saturday is also the third anniversary of the crash of TWA Flight 800, which exploded off the coast
of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board.
A spokesman for the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air Force Base in Norfolk,
Virginia, said the last radar signal was received from Kennedy’s plane as it made its final approach to
Martha’s Vineyard about 9:30 p.m.
Some 15 small Cessna and Piper planes from the Civil Air Patrol, four U.S. Air Force and Coast
Guard C-130 cargo planes and a half dozen helicopters were part of the search team, said Sgt. Dan
Conley of the coordination center.
Officials said Kennedy had not filed a flight plan.
Believed to be on the missing plane were Kennedy, his wife Carolyn and her older sister Lauren,
authorities said.
Reports conflicted over whether a fourth person, a flight instructor, was on board.
A Coast Guard spokesman in Woods Hole, Mass., said an instructor was present, but Conley,
coordinating the search from the Langley air base, said an instructor was not believed to be on the
plane.
A family spokesman, Brian O’Connor, told local radio in Cape Cod that as far as the family knew,
three people were aboard the plane – Kennedy, his wife and her sister.
Kennedy was planning to land the plane in Martha’s Vineyard to drop off Bessette’s sister, and then
carry on to Hyannisport, the spokesman said.
O’Connor described the mood at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, where people were
arriving all day, as ``somber.‘’
The family planned to hold a mass to pray for the safe return of all aboard the plane, the spokesman
said.
In Washington, President Clinton was informed early in the morning and was closely monitoring the
search efforts, Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said in a statement.
``All our prayers and thoughts are with the families of those on board,‘’ Lockhart said.
Clinton telephoned members of the Kennedy family, including Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy
and John Kennedy’s sister Caroline, White House officials said.
Kennedy, whose handsome patrician looks once earned him the moniker of ``the sexiest man alive’’
by People magazine, is one of the best-known figures in the Kennedy political dynasty.
He is founding editor of George, a glossy magazine covering politics and celebrities.
He and his wife, who were married in September 1996, live in the posh downtown section of
Tribeca in New York City.
She is a former publicist for designer Calvin Klein.
He graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and earned a law degree from
New York University.
He worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office before launching the magazine, published by
Hachette Filipacchi, in 1995.
A familiar figure in New York City as he rides his bicycle, inline skates or walks his dog, Kennedy
injured his foot in a paragliding accident a few weeks ago. Some media reports said he was flying the
plane with a cast on his foot.
The Coast Guard in Wood’s Hole said except for some low clouds and a bit of haze, there was
nothing unusual about the weather Friday night between New York and Massachusetts.
The Federal Aviation Administration released a statement saying Kennedy’s family alerted authorities
``in the early hours of the morning’’ that the plane was missing.
The coordination center said a distress signal from an airplane beacon was detected in the water off
the eastern tip of Long Island but that a search had turned up nothing.
Everyone plz keep your finger crossed.
I walked beside the evening sea;
And dreamed a dream;that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore;
Said only-
“Dreamer,dream no more”.