Details of search for JFK Jr.’s plane revealed in new book

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Twenty-seven years after John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, perished in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, a new book is shedding light on the frantic search to find the missing plane and what happened after their bodies were found.

The events following the fatal crash on July 16, 1999, were chronicled by Coast Guard Capt. W. Russ Webster and his wife, maritime historian Theresa Mitchell Webster, in a book published by Harper Select on Tuesday, titled The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr.

Speaking to PEOPLE magazine about his book, Capt. Webster described the five-day operation as “the largest at-sea search for a private citizen in a small plane crash in U.S. history,” involving officials from 32 agencies, including the Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration.

While much has been written about the events leading up to the tragic accident that captivated a nation, Capt. Webster told PEOPLE that his book picks up where other accounts left off: the moments after the crash.

Though the book took the authors 15 years to write, it comes following renewed interest in the famous Kennedy couple after the release of the Disney+ limited series, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette earlier this year.

In an excerpt from the book published by PEOPLE, the Websters write about how JFK Jr.’s plane, a Piper Saratoga II, slammed into the water “nose first,” about 11.67 km southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., at around 9:40 p.m.

The crash happened just over an hour after takeoff, which was already more than two hours behind schedule when it departed Essex County Airport in Caldwell, N.J.

The trio aboard the plane was supposed to stop at Martha’s Vineyard to drop off Lauren, while the Kennedys headed to Hyannis Port, Mass., for JFK Jr.’s cousin Rory Kennedy’s wedding at the Kennedy Compound the next day.

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Book details search and recovery efforts

The book described the sequence of events as the FAA and the Coast Guard were notified, and how the Coast Guard, Navy, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coordinated efforts to find the missing aircraft and recover its passengers.

According to the book, Navy divers first found JFK Jr.’s body “about 10 feet from the wreckage site” in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

The book described the roof of the plane as “torn off,” with the main body of the aircraft, the fuselage, exposed “like a bathtub.”

Carolyn and Lauren’s bodies were found inside the fuselage and were identified by their hair colour, the book said.

Speaking of the extreme weight felt by rescuers during in the search, co-author Theresa told the Boston Herald that both she and her husband sensed that they “felt that if they could not have saved the father, they were going to bring the son home,” referring to John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

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